SIMPLE    SOULS 


SIMPLE    SOULS 


BY 

JOHN  HASTINGS  TURNER 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1920 


Published  October,  1918 

Reprinted  November,  December,  1918;  January,  1918 
February.  1919,  April,  19i9.  December,  1919 
March,  1920 


CONTENTS 

CHAFTKR  PAGE 

I.  A  DUKE 1 

II.  MR.  AND  MRS.  SHINE       .     .     ....  25 

III.  THE  GOLDEN  TOAD 39 

IV.  NON  SEQUITUR 45 

V.  THE  DUKE'S  CREED 62 

VI.  MOLLY  DISCOVERS  HERSELF 71 

VII.  THE  CHURCH  MILITANT 82 

VIII.  SIMPLE  SOULS 93 

IX.  WIGS  ON  THE  GREEN 107 

X.  LADY  BLAKE  GOES  TO  TOWN       .      .      .      .118 

XI.  THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME  .     .     .  127 

XII.  ON  THE  EDGE  OF  A  VOLCANO     ....  142 

XIII.  MOLLY'S  DILEMMA 155 

XIV.  THE  ENEMY'S  COUNTRY 162 

XV.  DRESSED  FOR  THE  PART 170 

XVI.  CRUSADERS 180 

XVII.  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN 207 

XVIII.  CINDERELLA       .     .     . 218 

XIX.  COLLISION                                                      .  227 


2138489   ' 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XX.  "You  LITTLE  FOOL!" .246 

XXI.  THE  MADNESS  OF  MARY 255 

XXII.  AN  ADVENTURESS  IN  TROUSERS  ....  265 

XXIII.  HENRY  ASHAMED  OF  HIMSELF  ....  285 

XXIV.  TREASURE  ISLAND 294 

XXV.  AN  AMATEUR  LOVER  .  .  309 


SIMPLE  SOULS 

CHAPTER    I 

A   DUKE 

"PLEASE,  sir,  is  this  your  hat?" 

"My  hat,"  said  the  man,  instinctively  raising  his 
hand,  "is  on  my  head.  No,  it  isn't,"  he  added, 
withdrawing  his  hand.  "Now,  isn't  that  queer?" 

He  took  the  hat  from  the  girl's  hand,  and,  hold- 
ing it  rather  vaguely  at  his  side,  regarded  her  stead- 
ily. With  an  equally  steady  gaze  she  inspected 
him. 

What  he  saw  was  a  girl  in  the  early  twenties, 
dark  and  tall,  and  wearing  too  few  clothes.  This 
was  not  due  to  fashion,  but  to  poverty.  Incident- 
ally, she  was  beautiful,  but  he  was  the  sort  of  man 
who  would  not  realize  that  until  it  was  pointed  out 
to  him.  She  would  have  been  more  beautiful  still 
after  a  good  dinner. 

What  she  saw  was  a  man  between  thirty  and 
forty,  who  was  not  in  the  least  handsome.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  eyes  atoned  for  everything.  They 
were  gray  and  a  little  vague,  but  kindness  and 
honesty  looked  out  of  them  boldly  and  unashamed. 
And  this  was  odd,  because  he  had  had  an  expensive 
education,  and  might  have  been  expected  to  have 
the  usual  finesse  of  the  Society  man. 

I 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"It's  very  curious,"  he  said,  brushing  slowly  at 
the  nap  of  his  hat;  "but  this  is  continually  happen- 
ing." He  stopped.  "Now,  women  have  hatpins — 
that  must  make  it  much  less  difficult." 

She  said  nothing.  They  were  in  the  Snake  House 
at  the  Zoo,  and  they  were  its  only  occupants.  Sud- 
denly he  waved  his  arm  toward  the  cages. 

"That,"  he  said,  "is  the  common  python;  its 
habits  are  curious  but  very  interesting.  If  you  ob- 
serve, you  will  see  it  is  now  asleep.  Yet  the  least 

alien  sound,  the  smallest  enemy  scent "  He 

broke  off.  "Do  you  like  snakes?"  he  asked. 

"I  hate  'em,"  answered  the  giul. 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  know.  They're  slimy,"  she  said,  and 
made  a  gesture  of  repulsion. 

"That  is  true,"  he  said  gravely.  "Let  us  go  and 
sit  in  the  garden." 

She  followed  him  without  a  word.  He  was  ob- 
viously extraordinary,  obviously  safe,  and  obviously 
a  dear.  That  is  how  she  reasoned,  and  to  talk  to 
anyone  was  better  than  to  sit  on  a  seat  and  rebel  in 
silence  against  a  world  which  took  no  notice  of  her 
whatever. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  put  on  your  hat?"  she  said, 
as  they  sat  down. 

He  was  still  carrying  it  in  his  hand. 

"Yes,  of  course,"  he  said,  and  put  it  on. 

"Look  here,"  she  said  suddenly,  "I  suppose  you 
write  or  something?" 

He  looked  up. 

"Why  do  you  think  I  write?"  he  asked. 

2 


A   DUKE 

"Well,  there's  something  wrong  about  you,  isn't 
there?" 

"All  my  relations  say  so,  but  I  don't  write." 

"What  do  you  do?" 

"I  am  a  reptilian  biologist.     And  you?" 

"I  am  in  a  boot  store.  I'm  not  now,  because 
I've  chucked  it.  What's  your  name?" 

"Wynninghame." 

"That's  a  nice  name.     Do  you  live  in  London?" 

"Sometimes;  sometimes  in  the  country." 

"Have  you  got  two  houses?  Don't  answer  if 
I'm  impertinent." 

He  smiled. 

"Oh,  I  have  lots.  My  servant  has  a  list  of 
them  somewhere;  or  else  it's  my  solicitor.  I  for- 
get." 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  moment ;  then  she  kicked 
a  stone  on  the  path. 

"Isn't  it  awful  jolly  to  have  lots  of  homes?" 

"I  suppose  it  is;  but  I  hardly  ever  go  out  of 
town." 

"And  where  is  your  house?" 

"In  Piccadilly — Wynninghame  House." 

She  stared  at  him. 

"That  big  place  with  the  lions  outside?"  she 
said.  "But  that  belongs  to  a  Duke.  A  bobby  told 


me  so." 


"I  am  the  Duke  I"  he  said. 

She  gazed  at  him  for  quite  a  long  time  before 
she  spoke  again. 

"Well,  I  never!"  she  said  at  last.  "Who'd  have 
thought  it?" 

3 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Nobody  does,7'  he  said;  "it's  so  convenient. 
Now  tell  me  about  yourself." 

"There  isn't  anything  to  tell." 

"Well,"  he  asked,  "why,  for  instance,  have  you 
left  the  boot  shop?" 

"The  man  that  ran  it  couldn't  behave;  he  gave 
me  a  hell  of  a  time,  one  way  and  another — so  I 
chucked  it." 

"Dear  me — how  very  wrong  of  him  I" 

"Oh,  he  wasn't  out  of  the  ordinary,"  she  said, 
"but  it  got  too  thick  in  the  end.  Then  I  went  back 
to  father;  that  was  worse — almost.  He  kicks  me 
out  every  morning  to  look  for  a  job.  If  I  come 
back  before  six  I  get  kicked  out  again;  rotten — but 
of  course  he's  quite  right.  He  can't  keep  us." 

"But  why  not?" 

"Well,  he  drinks,  you  see;  that's  awful  expen- 


sive." 


"But  he  oughtn't  to  drink." 

"No.     But  it's  his  own  money." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Suddenly  the  Duke 
spoke,  almost  viciously,  to  himself. 

"Poor  little  devil!"  he  said;  then  he  resumed  his 
silence. 

"By  the  way,"  he  began,  a  moment  or  two  later, 
"have  you  had  tea  yet?" 

She  eyed  him  sharply. 

"No,"  she  said.  He  wasn't  the  man  to  guess 
that  she  had  not  had  lunch  either. 

He  rose.  "Let  us  go  and  get  some  tea,"  he  said. 
"I  believe  there  is  a  place  in  the  Gardens."  She 
got  up  and  a  smile  played  round  her  lips. 

4 


A   DUKE 

"You're  leaving  your  hat  again,"  she  said. 

He  picked  it  up. 

"You  have  not  told  me  your  name,"  he  began 
after  a  moment;  "not  that  I  have  any  right  to 
ask  it,  or  that  names  are  in  the  least  important. 
I  once  knew  a  man  called  William  Sykes  who  was  a 
churchwarden,  and  very  clever  at  his  job,  I  believe. 
Whereas  my  agent,  who  was  called  Pomeroy,  turned 
out  to  be  married  to  practically  every  woman  he 
knew.  He  had  to  go.  It  was  a  pity,  because  he 
was  a  good  agent." 

She  laughed  merrily,  and  he  seemed  surprised. 

"He  ought  to  have  been  a  good  husband,"  she 
said,  "with  so  much  practice." 

"Yes,"  answered  the  Duke,  "but  the  more  a 
man  knows  about  women  the  less  is  he  considered 
fit  for  married  life.  Personally,  I  know  nothing 
about  women,  but  as  a  husband  I  should  be  posi- 
tively comic." 

They  sat  down  at  the  usual  inadequate  table. 

"My  name,"  she  said,  "is  Molly  Shine;  and  I'm 
going  to  eat  a  hell  of  a  tea.  May  I  ?" 

"Of  course,"  he  answered,  and  signaled  to  a 
passing  waitress. 

"You're  a  godsend,"  said  Molly  simply;  "that's 
what  you  are." 

"Everybody  in  the  world,"  he  said,  "is  a  god- 
send; and  ninety  per  cent,  forget  it  at  the  age  of 
seven.  Personally,  I  like  the  world.  I  don't  see 
why  we  are  here  if  we  don't." 

"I  hate  it,"  she  said. 

"Why?" 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  don't  know.     Perhaps "     She  looked  into 

his  eyes.  "Oh,  well,  perhaps  I  don't  hate  it  as 
much  as  I  think.  Go  on  talking.  I  want  to  eat, 
and  I  like  your  talk." 

"How  charming  of  you!"  he  said.  "My  rela- 
tions hate  it.  My  sister  says  that  so  long  as  I  hold 
my  tongue  and  obey  my  valet,  I'm  possible;  other- 
wise,-no.  Thank  God,  I'm  not  called  upon  to  say 
what  I  think  about  her.  Her  poor  husband  died 
from  syncope.  I  always  say  he  died  from  being 
overwhelmed.  However,  she's  an  awfully  nice 
woman,  I  expect,  if  one  knew  her." 

"But  didn't  you  say  she  was  your  sister?" 

He  poured  some  tea  into  his  saucer. 

"Does  one  ever  know  one's  relations  really  well? 
You  don't  mind  this,  do  you?  It's  so  hot!"  He 
drank  from  the  saucer  like  a  large,  good-natured 
cat.  She  laughed. 

"Do  they  do  that  in  Piccadilly?"  she  asked. 

"Probably  not,"  he  said.  "I  don't  think  Society 
has  the  slightest  conception  of  what  comfort  is." 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked,  a  little  wistfully. 

"It  consists  largely  in  drinking  one's  tea  from 
the  saucer  when  it  is  too  hot,  and  keeping  one's 
ideas  to  oneself  when  they  are  too  unusual.  So- 
ciety is  afraid  to  do  the  one  and  unable  to  do  the 
other." 

He  broke  off  and  suddenly  stared  at  her. 

"I  say,"  he  began,  "will  you  think  me  very 
rude  if  I  ask  you  what  time  you  had  lunch?" 

She  laughed.  "Yesterday,"  she  said,  and  bit 
deeply  into  a  dreadful  pastry. 

6 


A   DUKE 

He  seemed  to  reflect  deeply  for  some  moments. 
"That,"  he  said  at  last,  "seems  very  wrong  of 


someone." 


"Yes,"  she  said;  "but,  crikes!  there  are  lots  worse 
off  than  I  am.  We  can't  all  have  enough  to  do  as 
we  like." 

"And  what  would  you  like?" 

"Two  pounds  a  week." 

"Then  what  would  you  do?" 

"I'd  read  books.  Not  good  books.  Silly  books : 
like  this."  She  showed  a  popular  shilling  novel 
which  she  was  carrying. 

"Why  not  good  books?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know — good  books  don't  seem 
human.  I  like  books  where  people  love  each  other 
ridiculously,  and  do  foolish,  romantic  things  they'd 
get  six  months  for;  in  the  good  books  they  do  get 
six  months — and  I  hate  that." 

"You  don't  like  things  to  be  realistic." 

"I  don't  believe  it  is — I  can't  pronounce  that 
word  properly.  It  isn't  real,  not  to  be  sentimental 
—is  it?" 

He  laughed. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "  a  sentimental  Duke 
sounds  ridiculous." 

"Well,"  she  said,  "isn't  a  Duke  ridiculous,  any- 
way?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  he  answered.  "But  then  you 
like  the  ridiculous?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "and  I  adore  Dukes;  all  the 
silliest  books  are  crammed  with  Dukes." 

"You're  not  a  bit  like  the  ordinary  shop-girl," 

7 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

he  said  slowly.     It  was  part  of  his  nature  that  this 
should  strike  him  for  the  first  time,  now. 

"Well,  you're  not  like  an  ordinary  peer — not  that 
I've  ever  met  any — but  you  aren't.  There  are 
freaks  in  every  job.  There  was  a  boy  in  the  gro- 
cer's near  us  who  became  a  senior — what  is  it? — 
sums  and  things." 

"A  senior  wrangler?" 

"Yes.  In  the  end  he  chloroformed  his  landlady. 
So  you  see  you  can't  have  it  both  ways.  If  he 
hadn't  been  the  sort  of  man  to  chloroform  people 
he  wouldn't  have  been  senior  wrangler." 

The  Duke  lit  a  cigarette  and  puffed  thoughtfully. 
She  stretched  out  her  legs  and  put  her  hands  to  the 
back  of  her  neck.  A  feeling  of  contentment  was 
stealing  over  her  like  a  warm  bath.  This  man  was 
so  safe.  She  did  not  have  to  be  continually  fencing 
with  him,  as  was  so  often  the  case.  It  was  almost 
like  talking  to  a  nice  old  gentleman,  though  she 
thought,  as  she  stole  a  glance  at  him  over  the  rim 
of  her  teacup,  he  couldn't  be  more  than,  say,  thirty- 
eight.  It  was  very  wrong,  of  course,  to  return  a 
gentleman  his  hat  and  then  make  an  enormous  tea 
at  his  expense.  Her  mother,  who  was  one  of  those 
women  who  has  her  cross  to  bear  and  advertises  the 
same  in  and  out  of  season,  would  have  wept  tears 
of  real  distress  had  she  learned  of  her  daughter's 
behavior.  Mrs.  Shine  believed  in  Hell  and  red 
devils  with  as  profound  a  conviction  as  she  believed 
in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  Mr.  Shine,  who  became 
more  and  more  righteous  with  every  glass  of  beer 
he  drank,  would  have  thrashed  Molly  and  apolo- 

8 


A   DUKE 

gized  to  her  in  the  morning.  He  was  probably  a 
better  specimen  of  human  nature  than  his  wife. 
Anyway,  Molly  had  a  respect  for  her  father  not 
entirely  based  upon  the  strength  of  his  arm.  She 
herself  had  managed  to  grow  out  of  that  lazy  habit 
of  dropping  aitches  which  permeated  her  family. 
For  this  alone  she  was  suspected  by  her  relations. 

Molly  was  a  clever  girl,  in  the  sense  that  she 
viewed  life  from  a  more  or  less  reasonable  stand- 
point without  giving  up  her  own  secret  and  in- 
curable passion — Romance.  The  room  she  shared 
with  her  sister,  who  was  learning  "shorthand"  and 
talked  about  "commerce,"  very  often  hid  under  the 
pillow  nearest  the  little  window  a  torn  volume  of 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.  When  this  was  discovered  it 
was  thrown  contemptuously  out,  and  Molly  was 
told  to  "fit  herself  for  life;  not  being  one  as  could 
afford  dreamin'."  But  she  used  to  retrieve  the 
book  without  losing  her  temper  and  hide  it  away 
again  till  next  time.  She  believed  everybody  could 
afford  to  dream ;  some  less  than  others,  that  was  all. 

But  things  in  the  Shine  household  were  getting 
very  bad.  Mr.  Shine  was  drinking  more  than  usual 
and  consequently  earning  less.  Gladys,  the  other 
daughter,  was  not  old  enough  to  do  anything  else 
than  talk  of  the  things  she'd  do  later,  and  Molly 
was  looked  upon  as  the  staff  which  should  support 
her  parents.  This  she  was  signally  failing  to  do. 
"She'll  never  be  nothing  but  a  waster" — that  was 
the  mother's  final  verdict,  sandwiched  in  between 
two  readings  from  the  Bible,  which  was  seldom  out 
of  her  hands.  She  regarded  it  as  a  sort  of  pass- 

9 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

port.  But  what  really  irritated  the  Shine  family 
was  that,  though  they  would  never  admit  it  even  to 
each  other,  they  knew  that  Molly  had  more  intel- 
ligence than  all  the  rest  of  them  put  together. 

The  Duke  woke  up  from  his  reverie  with  a  start. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said;  "I  am  keeping 
you." 

She  laughed. 

"Don't  be  silly!"  she  said.     He  paid  the  bill  and 
rose.     She  hesitated,  hardly  knowing  what  to  do. 

"What  made  you   so   dumb   all   at  once?"   she 
said. 

He  turned. 

"I  was  wondering,'*  he  said,  "how  it  is  possible 
for  people  to  exist  who  want  to  read  books  and 
can't."  He  had  become  serious  all  at  once.  "It 
is  as  if  you  stood  outside  the  Golden  Gate  and 
nobody  handed  you  the  key.  Good  God — and 
there  is  only  one  in  a  thousand  that  notices  the 
Golden  Gate  is  there  at  all  I"  Suddenly  he  faced 
round.  "Books,  ideas,  dreams — stick  to  them, 
cling  to  them,  my  child,  even  if  you  lose  everything 
else.  Dreams,  good  dreams,  are  all  that  are  left 
to  us.  Civilization  has  swept  away  the  rest.  But 
the  knight  of  to-day,  though  he  wear  a  morning 
coat,  may  still  keep  armor  on  his  soul.  I  believe 
that — don't  you?" 

"I  believe  there  are  good  men,"  she  said  simply. 

"Try  to  believe  that  always,  and  you  have  made 
a  success  of  life.     May  I  have  your  address?" 

She  hesitated. 

10 


A   DUKE 

"I  should  like  to  send  you  some  books — silly 
books." 

She  smiled. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  she  said.  "It's  No.  3 
Ball  Street,  Bermondsey." 

He  wrote  it  down  on  a  card. 

She  smiled  again. 

"Will  they  be  really  silly  books?"  she  asked. 

"The  very  silliest,"  he  returned;  "some  of  those 
are  the  most  sensible.  I  knew  a  dancer  once 
dressed  in  the  most  ridiculous  tinsel  and  stuff. 
There  was  a  fire,  and  she  gave  her  life  to  save  her 
partner.  Some  of  the  silly  books  are  like  that; 
they  may  be  ridiculous,  but  they  are  not  anemic." 

He  held  out  his  hand. 

"I  must  go,"  he  said.  "I  have  some  notes  to 
make  among  the  smaller  snakes.  Good-by!"  He 
took  off  his  hat. 

"Good-by!"  said  Molly. 

He  turned  his  back  and  walked  away  down  the 
path.  His  hat  was  still  in  his  hand,  for  he  had 
forgotten  to  replace  it,  and  his  rather  thick  brown 
hair  stirred  a  little  in  the  wind.  As  he  got  farther 
away  she  suddenly  heard  him  burst  out  with  the 
snatch  of  a  song. 

It  is  given  to  some  women  to  see  visions.  As 
the  Duke  swung  round  a  corner,  out  of  sight, 
Molly  suddenly  saw  a  vision  of  his  soul.  And  be- 
hold! it  was  the  soul  of  a  child.  And  suddenly, 
with  a  wild  little  pang  of  regret,  she  realized  that 
he  was*  a  Duke.  A  lump  rose  in  her  throat  and 
she  brushed  the  tears  angrily  from  her  eyes.  She 

II 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

turned  determinedly  round,  and  then  suddenly  ad- 
dressed a  tree. 

"I  have  seen  him  at  last,"  she  said;  "but  I  shall 
never  see  him  again." 
Then  she  laughed. 

"You  must  fit  yourself  for  life,  Molly,"  she 
said,  "or  you'll  get  a  hell  of  a  thin  time." 

She  walked  briskly  to  the  gates  and  turned  her 
face  toward  Bermondsey. 

"Lai  la!  la!"  sang  the  Duke  at  the  top  of  his 
voice  as  he  turned  again  into  the  Snake  House.  A 
rude  boy  laughed  and  was  hurried  away  by  his 
nurse,  who  looked  over  her  shoulder  apprehen- 
sively. 

"Henry!"  The  voice  cut  in  upon  the  Duke 
from  nowhere.  "Put  on  your  hat  and  stop  singing." 
He  looked  round  hastily,  and  saw  a  matronly 
looking  woman  of  forty,  behind  whom  stood  a 
dozen  very  awed-looking  little  girls  whose  frocks 
were  clean  enough  to  make  it  quite  certain  that  they 
were  unhappy. 

"My  dear  Octavia,"  said  the  Duke,  "what  are 
you  doing  here  ?" 

Then  he  put  on  his  hat. 

Lady  Octavia  Blake  was  the  Duke  of  Wynning- 
hame's  sister.  She  was  what  the  Duke  called  an 
"overwhelmer."  Her  method  was  a  terrific  ava- 
lanche of  words,  a  quick  breath,  and  then  another 
larger  avalanche.  It  was  a  method  that  was 
generally  completely  successful.  At  any  rate,  it 
went  far  toward  killing  her  husband,  who  was, 
without  doubt,  a  bore.  Lady  Octavia  was  very 

12 


A   DUKE 

worldly  and  very  cynical.  At  the  same  time  she 
did  a  great  deal  of  good,  not  by  stealth,  but  mostly 
on  committees.  One  of  her  great  passions  was 
organization.  It  was  an  ambition  of  hers  to  organ- 
ize Henry  into  a  real  Duke. 

"It  happens,"  said  Lady  Octavia,  in  answer  to 
the  Duke's  question,  "to  be  my  turn  for  the  Chil- 
dren's Occasional  Treat  Society;  that  is  why  I  am 
here.  It  is  lucky  you  have  turned  up,  for  now 
instruction  can  be  combined  with  amusement,  and 
you  can  tell  these  children  everything  about  snakes." 

The  Duke  looked  at  the  small  girls,  who  looked 
more  awed  and  more  starched  than  ever. 

"But  are  they  happy?"  he  said  slowly. 

"Of  course  they  are,"  replied  Octavia.  "They 
are  having  a  treat." 

"That  proves  nothing,"  said  the  Duke.  "I  re- 
member having  a  tremendous  treat  when  I  was  a 
boy  and  being  taken  to  see  'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.' 
I  was  in  tears  almost  the  whole  time." 

"Don't  be  absurd,  Henry!  What  do  you  think 
the  organization  is  for  except  to  make  them 
happy?"  Lady  Octavia  took  a  long  breath.  "You 
are  one  of  those  men  who  like  to  turn  everything 
upside  down.  I've  told  you  of  it  again  and  again. 
You  believe  in  indiscriminate  charity.  Don't  deny 
it,  Henry — you  do!  Very  well,  it's  a  vice.  It's 
just  as  much  a  vice  as  drinking  too  much.  It's  as 
wrong  to  be  extravagant  in  the  East  End  as  it  is  in 
the  West.  Everything  should  be  organized;  you 
should  be  organized.  Somebody  should  come  and 
marry  you,  and  see  that  you  produce  children  and  a 

13 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

home  and  a  fireside  and  all  that.  Then  you'd  mean 
something.  As  it  is,  it  takes  you  and  a  whole  staff 
of  servants  to  live  one  life — your  life.  That's  all 
wasted  effort — and  why?  Lack  of  organization  I" 

Here  one  of  the  smaller  girls  burst  out  crying. 

"If  you  cry,  Milly,"  said  Octavia,  "you  won't  go 
for  the  next  treat.  You're  not  here  to  cry — you're 
here  to  enjoy  yourself.  Now,"  she  said,  address- 
ing the  small  crowd  in  general,  "this  gentleman  is 
going  to  tell  you  all  about  snakes." 

"No,  I'm  not,  Octavia,"  said  the  Duke.  "There 
are  heaps  of  things  about  snakes  that  it  would  not 
be  fit  for  them  to  hear." 

"Well,  then,  you  can  tell  them  the  rest." 

"No,  Octavia." 

"Really,  Henry,  you  are  too  obstinate !  Why 
ever  not?" 

The  Duke  threw  away  his  cigarette. 

"Because  it  would  bore  them  to  distraction, 
Octavia;  and  I  know  of  no  greater  crime  than  to 
bore  a  child." 

Lady  Octavia  snorted. 

"They've  got  to  be  bored,"  she  declared,  "if 
they're  ever  to  learn  anything.  Weren't  you  bored 
the  whole  time  you  were  at  Eton,  Henry?" 

"Of  course  I  wasn't,"  said  the  Duke.  "On  Sun- 
day afternoons  we  were  left  entirely  alone  for  two 
hours." 

She  sighed. 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said  at  last,  "I  suppose  you  are 
incorrigible.  Are  you  going  to  the  Paris  Biologists' 
Conference  ?" 

14 


A  DUKE 

"I  am — on  Friday  week." 

"You'll  make  a  fool  of  yourself  there,  Henry." 

"Very  probably,  Octavia,"  said  the  Duke  dryly. 
He  turned  to  the  children.  "Try  to  be  happy,"  he 
said.  "Look  hard  at  the  animals  and  forget  every- 
thing else.  It's  quite  possible  to  enjoy  oneself  even 
on  a  treat."  He  took  off  his  hat  to  Octavia.  "I 
hope  everybody  is  well  at  the  Towers,"  he  added. 

"Oh,  yes,"  returned  Octavia.  "But  Gerald  talks 
less  sense  and  stoops  more  every  day." 

"Ah!"  murmured  the  Duke  as  he  walked  away. 
"He  ought  to  have  been  organized." 

He  made  what  notes  he  had  to  make  and  turned 
toward  home.  He  left  his  hat  with  the  lizards 
and  his  stick  among  the  toads;  but  that  was  nothing 
at  all  unusual,  and,  besides,  he  had  a  great  many 
hats. 

As  a  taxi  took  him  back  to  Piccadilly,  he  sat 
for  some  time  gazing  at  the  imitation  flowers  in 
front  of  him.  His  thoughts  went  back  to  Molly, 
standing  outside  the  Golden  Gate.  "Poor  little 
devil!"  he  said;  then  he  saw  again  the  rows  of 
awed  and  starched  little  girls  with  big  foreheads 
and  exiguous  plaits.  He  sighed.  "Poor  little 
devils!"  he  said.  In  a  sense  they  were  both  victims 
of  organization.  Molly  and  the  children. 

When  the  taxi  arrived  at  Wynninghame  House, 
he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  found  that  he  had 
no  money. 

A  grave-faced  valet  in  a  navy  blue  suit  came 
down  and  paid  the  fare. 

IS 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  looked  at  him  and  remembered  that 
he,  too,  was  part  of  an  organization. 

"You  know,  Dunn,"  he  said,  "Lady  Octavia  is 

not  altogether  wrong "  He  stopped,  then  strode 

forward  up  the  steps.  "But  she's  wrong,"  he 
shouted,  "that  I'll  swear  to." 

Professor  Peter  Graine  was  standing  in  the  study 
at  Wynninghame  House.  He  was  a  close  friend  of 
the  family  and  especially  of  Henry,  who  was,  except 
for  their  mutual  passion  for  reptiles,  his  exact  op- 
posite. Peter  was  a  short,  bald  man  of  sixty,  and 
facts  and  figures  were  his  gods.  He  was  a  Doctor 
of  Science  and  a  great  many  other  things.  In  fact, 
he  was  positively  loaded  with  recognitions,  from  all 
over  the  world,  of  the  fact  that  when  two  and  two 
were  added  together  by  him  they  invariably  made 
four.  Henry,  on  the  other  hand,  as  often  as  not 
would  bring  out  the  answer  as  five:  result,  no 
recognitions.  At  the  same  time,  with  the  Duke, 
one  could  not  help  feeling  that  possibly  one  day 
five  would  turn  out  to  be  the  right  answer  all  along. 
He  was  always  on  the  edge  of  a  great  discovery. 
But  Peter  played  the  safer  game  of  making  cer- 
tainties more  certain.  Wherefore  he  was  a  success, 
whereas  Henry,  in  so  far  as  a  Duke  may  be  called 
a  failure,  was  not. 

The  Duke  came  in  through  a  pair  of  enormous 
double  doors  and  threw  his  notebook  on  the  table. 

"Hullo,  Peter!"  he  said.  "I'm  going  to  Paris 
to-morrow." 

"To-morrow?"  said  the  Professor.  "But  why 

16 


A  DUKE 

on  earth?    The  Conference  does  not  sit  till  Friday 
week." 

The  Duke  flung  himself  into  a  chair. 

"I  met  Octavia  at  the  Zoo;  whenever  I  meet 
Octavia  I  have  a  tremendous  desire  to  leave  the 
country  at  once."  He  waved  an  arm  as  if  brushing 
away  something  unpleasant.  "Very  wrong  of  me, 
of  course.  But  she  creates  an  atmosphere — of — of 
being  buried  alive." 

"Octavia,  Henry,"  said  Graine  slowly,  "is  an 
eminently  sensible  woman.  Personally,  I  have  the 
greatest  respect  for  her  judgment  on  any  subject." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  the  Duke.  "But  I  always  look  at 
people  from  the  point  of  view  of  what  sort  of  figure 

they  would  cut  in  Heaven.     Now,   Octavia " 

He  broke  off.     "Anyway,"  he  said  suddenly,  "why 
shouldn't  I  go  to  Paris?" 

Peter  Graine  said  nothing. 

"The  question  is,"  the  Duke  went  on,  "will  you 
come,  too?" 

"You  certainly  can't  go  alone,  Henry.  If  there 
is  one  city  in  the  world  where  they  know  how  to 
make  hay  while  the  sun  shines,  it  is  Paris.  You 
would  give  away  all  your  money  and  probably 
become  involved  in  a  scandal." 

"In  other  words,"  said  the  Duke  imperturbably, 
"you  wish  to  come." 

Peter  Graine  moved  across  to  the  window  and 
sighed. 

"Paris  is  a  delightful  city,"  he  said.  "I  don't 
see  that  a  week's  rest  will  do  us  any  harm  before 
the  Conference." 

17 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  laughed. 

"You  are,  I  believe,  sixty  years  old,  Peter,"  he 
said;  "yet  Paris  means  to  you  restaurants,  farces, 
and  frocks,  and  your  idea  of  a  rest — well,  it  always 
leaves  you  only  fit  for  a  complete  change." 

"I  admit  it,"  said  Graine.  "I  like  color  and 
wine  and  women;  and  so  long  as  they  like  me  I 
shall  refuse  to  admit  that  I  am  an  old  man." 

"Ah,  well !    Everyone  to  his  taste." 

Graine  swung  round. 

"You  affect  to  despise  all  that,  Henry,  because 
you  are  cold-blooded.  Pah !  You  don't  know  how 
to  live!  You  dream  and  dream,  and  what  is  left? 
Nothing.  A  dream  doesn't  even  leave  a  memory." 
He  banged  his  fist  on  the  table.  "And  because 
you  have  the  emotions  of  a  fish,  you  count  it  a 
virtue.  Pooh!  Heaven  save  me  from  the  man 
who  has  never  been  drunk!" 

"I  do  not  in  the  least  consider  myself  virtuous," 
replied  the  Duke  mildly,  "even  if  I  am  a  fish — 
which,  by  the  way,  I  deny.  But  your  commercial- 
ized pleasures  merely  leave  you  a  cynic.  You  know 
the  price  of  so  many  things  that  you  imagine  every- 
thing has  a  price.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  an 
enormous  amount  of  amusement  to  be  got  out  of 
complete  ignorance  of  the  world.  I  feel  positive 
Hans  Andersen  knew  that.  I  would  rather  have 
written  the  tale  about  the  'Tin  Soldier'  than  the 
whole  of  Darwin's  works." 

"That  is  ridiculous." 

"Of  course  it  is.  So  am  I.  Why  can't  you 
leave  a  man  to  his  own  particular  brand  of  folly? 

18 


A   DUKE 

We  will  go  to  Paris.  You  shall  get  drunk,  and  I 
will  remain  in  the  hotel  and  be  ridiculous." 

"I  don't  get  drunk." 

"Exhilarated,  then.  I  am  sure  you  could  tell 
me  the  precise  difference  in  price  between  exhilara- 
tion and  drunkenness." 

"Henry,  you  annoy  me." 

"It  is  one  of  my  ridiculous  forms  of  amusement." 

"I  shall  not  pander  to  it.  Anyone  would  think 
you  were  a  perfect  fool.  I  shall  go  out  to  the  pond 
and  look  at  the  tadpoles;  at  any  rate,  they  don't 
make  idiotic  remarks." 

"Neither  do  they  get  drunk — yet  I  suppose  tad- 
poles have  vices.  I  wonder  what  they  are  ?" 

Peter  Graine  snorted  his  disgust  and  passed  out 
of  the  room. 

"You're  coming  to  Paris  to-morrow,  Peter?" 
the  Duke  shouted  after  him. 

"Of  course,"  answered  the  Professor. 

The  Duke  sat  down  again  and  slowly  filled  his 
pipe.  For  a  man  of  thirty-eight  his  life  had  been 
one  of  no  little  achievement.  He  had  done  none 
of  the  things  that  everybody  does.  He  had  never 
published  a  book,  written  a  play,  or  even  attended 
the  House  of  Lords.  But  the  hum  of  Piccadilly, 
which  he  could  hear  faintly  in  his  study,  still  sounded 
to  him  like  laughter,  and  in  the  sea  of  faces  which 
he  saw  in  the  streets  he  could  still  detect  smiles 
which  other  men  could  not  see.  And  this  is  an 
achievement.  True,  his  optimism  had  been  largely 
fostered  by  a  studied  policy  of  living  the  life  of  a 
hermit,  as  far  as  possible.  But  it  is  very  hard  for 

19 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

a  peer  to  be  an  anchorite,  and  Piccadilly  is  not  the 
best  place  for  the  cloistered  life.  Therefore,  he 
may  be  counted  to  have  achieved  something.  Most 
of  his  family  considered  him  a  little  mad. 

His  niece  Mary,  who  was  just  passing  through 
one  of  the  most  virulent  attacks  of  Romance  that 
even  nineteen  is  exposed  to,  had  once  said  that 
Uncle  Henry  was  a  dear.  To  which  her  mother, 
Lady  Octavia,  had  replied  that  she  never  had  been 
able  to  understand  why  he  hadn't  had  it  knocked 
out  of  him  at  Eton.  In  that  remark  her  whole 
outlook  was  embodied.  Lady  Octavia  was  a  capa- 
ble woman;  in  her  own  sex  she  might  have  for- 
given the  kind  of  incompetence  which  is  so  often 
fascinating.  Even  then  she  would  only  have  for- 
given it  as  being  part  of  a  bag  of  tricks  which  go 
toward  making  a  woman  charming  and  marriage- 
able. In  a  male,  of  course,  it  could  serve  no  pur- 
pose and  was  unforgivable.  And  in  addition  to 
that  it  made  a  man  a  continual  source  of  alarm. 
Lady  Octavia  could  never  be  quite  certain  that 
Henry  would  not  do  something  grotesque.  Her 
own  boy,  Gerald,  was  to  succeed  to  the  title,  as 
it  was  inconceivable  that  Henry  would  ever  do  any- 
thing so  orthodox  as  to  have  a  son.  She  was  the 
first  to  acknowledge  that  Gerald  was  utterly  fatuous, 
but  she  considered  he  would  make  a  much  better 
head  of  the  family.  At  any  rate,  Gerald's  trousers 
never  bagged  at  the  knees. 

The  Duke  touched  a  bell  on  his  right.  Almost 
immediately  the  valet,  Dunn,  came  in. 

"We  are  going  to  Paris  to-morrow,  Dunn." 
20 


A  DUKE 

"Very  good,  your  Grace." 

"And  I  wish  you  to  take  a  note." 

The  valet  picked  up  a  book  from  the  table. 

"I  wish  two  pounds  a  week  sent  to  this  address," 
the  Duke  went  on.  "Miss  Shine,  3  Ball  Street, 
Bermondsey.  In  the  first  instalment  you  will  en- 
close a  note  which  I  will  write  now." 

He  sat  down  at  the  table  and  wrote  a  few  lines. 
The  valet  remained  like  a  statue  opposite  him. 
Suddenly  the  ghost  of  a  smile  sped  over  his  face  as 
he  watched  his  master.  The  student  of  psychology 
might  have  noticed  something  maternal  in  it. 

The  D-uke  finished  his  note  and  handed  it  to 
Dunn. 

"Is  it  going  to  be  a  fine  evening,  Dunn?"  he 
asked. 

"I  think  so,  your  Grace."  The  Duke  turned 
to  the  window. 

"Have  you  ever  reflected  upon  the  significance 
of  a  fine  evening?" 

"No,  your  Grace." 

"It  means,  Dunn,  that  more  people  in  the  world 
are  laughing  than  crying." 

"And  a  wet  one,  your  Grace?" 

"Have  you  ever  noticed  how  often  a  wet  day 
breaks  in  the  evening?  It  is  nature  turning  opti- 
mist at  the  last  minute — at  least,  if  it  isn't  it  ought 
to  be." 

"Yes,  your  Grace." 

He  turned  back  from  the  window. 

"Well,  well.  We  go  to  Paris  to-morrow,  and  I 
shall  have  to  behave  myself." 

21 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  valet  went  out  by  the  big  doors,  closing 
them  noiselessly  behind  him. 

The  Duke  mechanically  swept  up  some  papers 
from  his  table. 

Then  the  door  opened,  and  a  young  man  of  some 
twenty  summers  came  in,  in  evening  dress. 

"Why,  Gerald,"  said  the  Duke,  "what  are  you 
doing  in  town?" 

The  young  man  laughed.  He  had  a  pleasant 
laugh  and  a  pleasant  face,  but  his  physique  was 
frail,  and  he  had  the  air  of  a  self-indulgent  boy. 

"Oh,  the  usual  thing." 

"And  what  is  that?" 

"Girls.  Can  you  let  me  have  a  couple  of  fivers, 
Uncle  Henry?  The  banks  are  closed,  you  know. 
I  just  blew  in.  I  thought  you  might  be  here."  He 
sat  down  at  the  table  and  drew  out  a  check-book. 
The  Duke  unlocked  a  drawer. 

"Girls!"  he  said.  "How  very  important  women 
seem  to  be!" 

"They  are,"  said  Gerald  simply,  taking  the  two 
five-pound  notes  his  uncle  was  holding  out  to  him. 
The  Duke  smiled. 

"Are  you  in  love,  Gerald?"  he  asked. 

"Well,  yes,  but  there's  no  need  to  tell  anyone," 
he  hesitated.  "She's  the  finest  little  woman  in  the 
world,  Uncle  Henry,"  he  said  suddenly,  "and  she's 
promised  to  be  my  wife." 

"My  dear  boy,  how  splendid !"  The  Duke  took 
his  hand.  Gerald  looked  down. 

"If  you  ever  hear  anyone  say  anything  against 
her,  don't  you  believe  'em." 

22 


A   DUKE 

"But  why  should  anyone  say  anything  against 
her?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;  people  are  such  cads,  you 
know." 

"And  what  is  her  name?" 

"I'm  not  telling  anyone  that  yet — in  fact,  I'm 
not  telling  anyone  I'm  engaged  at  all."  He  looked 
suddenly  up.  "Especially  not  the  mater,"  he 
added. 

"But  why  not?" 

The  boy  hesitated. 

"She  wouldn't  understand,"  he  said.  "You'll 
keep  the  secret,  Uncle  Henry." 

"Of  course,"  said  the  Duke  as  Gerald  went  to 
the  door.  "Give  the  lady  my  best  wishes,  please." 

Gerald  turned. 

"I  will,"  he  said.  "You're  a  damned  good  sort, 
Uncle  Henry.  I  wish  you  could  fall  in  love — it's 
tophole.  But  you  aren't  made  that  way,  are  you?" 
He  went  out,  passing  Peter  Graine  in  the  doorway. 
They  exchanged  the  usual  greetings,  and  Peter 
came  in. 

"What's  Gerald  doing  in  town,  Henry?"  he 
said,  selecting  a  cigarette  from  a  box  on  the  mantel- 
piece. 

"Oh — amusing  himself,"  said  the  Duke. 

Graine  grunted. 

"Getting  into  trouble,  I  expect,"  he  said. 
"Well,  my  dear  Peter,  everybody  has  a  perfect 
right  to  do  that.     And  people  who  are  going  to 
Paris  in  the  morning  shouldn't  throw  stones." 
The  Professor  laughed. 

23 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"All  right,  Henry,"  he  said,  "it's  nothing  to  do 
with  me — I'm  not  his  uncle." 

"Are  you  dining  here,  Peter?" 

"Please." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  The  Duke  was  star- 
ing out  of  the  window.  It  was  certainly  a  fine  eve- 
ning, but  a  long  line  of  rain-clouds  lay  low  down  in 
the  east.  Peter  came  silently  up  behind  him.  Sud- 
denly the  Duke  stretched  out  his  arms. 

"A  glorious  evening!"  he  said.  "It  makes  one 
feel  all  is  right  with  the  world.  Ah,  Peter,  what  a 
thing  it  is  to  live !  To  think  'I  will  go  to  Paris' 
and  to  go!  To  feel  hungry,  and  to  eat!  To  feel 
thirsty,  and  to  drink  1  What  are  your  amusements 
compared  with  that?  A  wonderful  sky!  There 
are  very  few  tears  being  shed  to-night."  He 
pointed  to  the  clouds  on  the  horizon.  "Where  are 
those,  Peter?" 

The  Professor  thought  for  a  moment. 

"That  is  the  east,"  he  said  slowly. 

The  Duke's  hand  fell  to  his  side. 

"Ah!"  he  said.     "Bermondsey  way." 

Peter  Graine  stared  at  him;  the  Duke  went 
slowly  to  the  door;  then  he  turned. 

"What  a  thing,  Peter!"  he  said.  "To  see  the 
Golden  Gate  and  have  no  key!  Poor  little  devil!" 

He  went  out.  The  Professor  looked  after  him 
a  moment;  then  he  shrugged  his  shoulders.  Henry 
was  always  inexplicable. 


MR.  AND  MRS.  SHINE 

GLADYS  SHINE,  sitting  on  the  end  of  her  bed,  glow- 
ered, in  a  thoroughly  pre-breakfast  state  of  mind,  at 
Molly's  back. 

"Well,"  she  said  at  last,  "'ow  long  are  you  going 
to  be  with  the  glass,  your  Ladyship?" 

"I've  got  more  hair  to  do  than  you,"  returned 
Molly  complacently.  "It  didn't  take  me  nearly  so 
long  when  I  was  a  flapper." 

"Flapper!"  snorted  the  other.  "My  hair's  going 

up  at  Christmas "  She  stopped  abruptly.  "Did 

you  get  a  job  yesterday?"  she  said. 

"No,"  answered  Molly  shortly. 

"Hum!"  said  the  other.  "Father  won't  'alf  be 
pleased." 

"Jobs  don't  grow  on  trees,"  said  Molly,  as  she 
put  the  finishing  touches  to  her  toilet. 

"What  about  Sid  Goyle?"  The  question  came 
suddenly  from  the  younger  girl.  Molly  suddenly 
clenched  her  hands. 

"Well,  what  about  him?" 

"  'E'd  marry  you — that's  what  about  him." 

"Think  so?" 

"I  don't  think — I  know.  What's  more,  so  does 
mother  and  father.  I  'card  father  say  last  night, 
if  you  couldn't  get  a  job "  She  stopped. 

"Well?"  said  Molly. 

25 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"You'd  better  marry  'im,"  went  on  Gladys  im- 
perturbably.  She  couldn't  see  from  where  she  was 
standing  the  sudden  tightening  of  the  muscles,  the 
slight  contraction  of  the  lips,  and  the  smoldering 
fury  in  Molly's  eyes.  She  went  on,  evenly. 

"What's  wrong  with  'im?"  she  said.  "  'E's  got 
enough  to  keep  you,  and  if  'e  thinks  it  worth  it. 
I  know  father  does.  And  think  of  a  wedding!"  she 
added  enthusiastically. 

There  was  a  moment  or  two  of  complete  silence. 
The  alarm  clock  on  the  stained  mantelpiece  ticked 
on  monotonously. 

"You  beast!"  said  Molly  suddenly.  "Oh,  you 
beast!"  The  door  banged  behind  her,  and  Gladys 
heard  her  footsteps  hurrying  down  the  stairs.  The 
younger  girl  shrugged  her  shoulders;  it  was  the 
gesture  of  a  woman  of  the  world. 

When  Molly  entered  the  little  sitting-room,  it 
was  empty.  The  cloth,  remaining  on  the  table  from 
last  night's  supper,  was  still  covered  with  crumbs 
and  litter.  Molly  removed  these,  and,  going  to  the 
sideboard,  a  peculiar  erection  of  yellow  wood,  began 
to  lay  the  breakfast.  This  the  two  girls  took  it  in 
turns  to  do. 

As  she  put  the  crockery  on  the  table,  every  piece 
seemed  to  be  a  memorial  of  some  dreadful  meal; 
meals  when  her  father  had  been  drunk  and  her 
mother  in  tears;  maudlin  meals,  violent  meals,  or 
just  silent,  dull  meals.  There  was  a  piece  off  the 
spout  of  the  tea-pot  which  had  led  to  a  terrible 
scene  between  husband  and  wife.  It  had  been  a 
long  time  ago,  that  scene,  and  had  since  been  many 

26 


MR.   AND   MRS.    SHINE 

times  repeated,  but  Molly  remembered  it  for  the 
reason  that  the  occasion  had  been  the  first  that  she 
had  realized  the  sort  of  existence  her  parents  led. 
The  impression  had  stuck. 

Strange  to  say,  the  personal  memories  of  the 
pieces  of  china  affected  Molly  a  great  deal  more 
than  the  jarring  and  hideous  decoration  of  the 
room  itself.  She  was  used  to  oleographs  of  swans 
with  necks  that  were  too  long,  or  of  lovers  with 
smiles  that  were  too  sickly.  They  did  not  offend 
her.  She  never  considered  whether  they  were  beau- 
tiful or  not.  If  she  had  she  would  probably  have 
thought  them  "all  right";  but,  for  all  that,  she 
could  show  enthusiasm  for  a  beautiful  sky  or  even 
the  green  of  an  anemic  tree  in  an  East  End  square. 
Her  sense  of  beauty,  except  for  a  vague  longing 
after  something  other  than  dulness,  was  not  de- 
veloped. 

Her  mother,  wearing  her  usual  pained  look  of 
astonishment,  though  she  no  longer  had  the  spirit 
to  be  astonished  at  anything,  came  in,  finishing  her 
dressing  in  the  doorway.  She  sat  down  heavily  on 
a  chair  and  sighed.  It  was  her  method  of  beginning 
another  day. 
,  "Eggs  on?"  she  said. 

"No,"  said  Molly,  diving  for  the  cruet. 

"Your  father'll  be  down  in  five  minutes.  Sam 
don't  like  to  be  kept  waiting."  Molly  went  out  of 
the  room,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  sizzling  eggs 
could  be  heard.  When  the  eggs  had  almost  arrived 
at  the  precise  pitch  of  perfection  which  Molly  knew 
her  father  required  of  them,  she  heard  a  heavy 

27 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

footstep  just  behind  her.  She  turned.  Samuel 
Shine  stood  there  regarding  her  with  his  heavy  red- 
rimmed  eyes. 

"Take  'em  off  now,"  he  said.  Molly  removed 
the  eggs.  Then  she  noticed  that  her  father  was 
carrying  the  shilling  novel  she  had  had  at  the  Zoo. 

"I  found  this  last  night,"  he  said  slowly,  "be'ind 
the  clock.  Is  it  yours?" 

"Yes,  father." 

"When  I  sent  you  out  yesterday  to  look  for  a 
job  I  gave  you  a  bob  to  get  your  food.  You  bought 
this  muck  instead?" 

"Yes,  father." 

He  regarded  her  steadily  for  some  time.  When 
he  was  sober — in  the  mornings,  that  is  to  say — she 
puzzled  him;  at  night,  when  he  was  drunk,  she  ir- 
ritated him. 

"  'Ow  much  money  'ave  you  now?"  he  said. 

"Threepence,"  said  Molly. 

"Give  it  to  me,"  commanded  her  father,  holding 
out  his  hand.  Molly  dived  into  an  elusive  pocket 
and  gave  it  to  him. 

"To-day,"  went  on  Mr.  Shine,  "you'll  just  go  out 
without  any  money — see?" 

"Yes,  father." 

"And  you  won't  come  back  till  supper-time." 

"No,  father." 

"An'  you'd  better  find  a  job.     'Adn't  you  ?" 

"Yes." 

"All  right;  come  on  with  the  eggs."  The  big 
man  turned  to  go  out  of  the  little  kitchen. 

"May  I  keep  the  book,  father?"  said  Molly. 
28 


MR.    AND   MRS.    SHINE 

He  turned  and  looked  at  her.  He  was  a  man 
with  certain  elementary  notions  of  justice.  She  had 
sold  her  lunch  for  the  book.  It  was  hers.  He 
held  it  out  to  her. 

"  'Ere  you  are,"  he  said,  "but  you'll  be  bloomin' 
'ungry  abaht  four  this  afternoon." 

She  smiled  radiantly. 

"That's  all  right,"  she  said.  They  understood 
one  another,  these  two.  Molly  could  see  that  her 
father  had  a  perfect  right  to  refuse  her  more 
money.  He  could  see  that  the  book  was  hers. 
Samuel  Shine  went  back  into  the  sitting-room. 
Molly  heard  a  few  words,  then  an  exasperated 
shout  from  her  father. 

"Oh,  don't  start  sniveling,  Em,  for  God's  sake !" 

As  she  put  the  last  egg  on  its  dish  she  smiled. 

"I  believe  I'd  get  drunk  myself  if  I  was  him," 
she  murmured  to  herself,  and  carried  the  breakfast 
in  to  her  parents. 

Gladys  had  come  down  and  was  pouring  out 
tea. 

As  Molly  took  her  place  her  mother  looked  up 
from  her  cup. 

"Young  Mr.  Goyle  came  in  yesterday,"  she  said. 
There  was  dead  silence. 

"I  think  you  might  answer  when  I  speak  to  you," 
went  on  Mrs.  Shine  in  a  peevish  tone. 

Molly  looked  up. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  talking  to  me,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  you  did,"  said  her  father;  "didn't  you?" 

Molly  said  nothing. 

"Come  on,"  said  her  father;  "I  want  an  answer." 
29 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Yes,"  said  Molly. 

"Then  don't  tell  lies,"  said  Mr.  Shine  in  his 
husky  voice. 

"I  don't  know  what  will  become  of  you,  I'm 
sure,"  sniveled  her  mother.  "Only  last  Sunday  in 
chapel  we  was  being  told  about  it.  'Those  that 
lie'll  perish' — that's  what  the  minister  said." 

"Then  you  do  know  what'll  become  of  me,"  said 
Molly.  "I'll  perish." 

Mrs.  Shine  threw  up  her  hands. 

"Is  there  any  woman  'oo's  cross  is  as  'eavy  to 
bear  as  mine?"  she  cried.  "My  own  daughter  one 
of  those  that  scoff  in  the  market-place  and  take 
the  Lord's  name  in  vain  I  And  my  'usband  as  ought 
to  be  my  shield  and  buckler  will  stand  by  without 
raising  a  'and!  There'll  be  a  judgment  one  day, 
mark  my  words!" 

"Shut  up,  Em,  and  'old  your  tongue.  Moll,  give 
me  that  last  egg."  It  was  Mr.  Shine's  way  of  deal- 
ing with  the  problem,  and  was  completely  successful 
in  so  far  as  a  heavy  silence  fell  upon  the  breakfast 
table.  It  was  broken  by  the  postman's  knock. 

Molly,  being  nearest  to  the  door,  went  out  into 
the  narrow  passage.  The  light  was  bad,  and  she 
had  almost  reached  the  sitting-room  door  again 
before  she  realized  that  the  single  letter  was  for  her. 
She  stopped  and  turned  it  over.  On  the  envelop 
was  a  little  black  coronet.  Molly  stared  straight  in 
front  of  her.  .  .  . 

Her  father's  voice  brought  her  back  to  herself. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing?"  he  shouted. 

She  thrust  the  letter  into  her  frock  and  went  in. 
30 


MR.    AND    MRS.    SHINE 

"There  was  only  one,  and  it  was  for  me,"  she 
said. 

"Any  work?"  said  her  father. 

"No." 

"Well,  what  was  it?"  came  her  mother's  irri- 
tating whine. 

"Only  from  a  girl  at  the  boot  store." 

Molly  lied  easily  and  fluently  this  time.  She 
didn't  care  whether  she  perished  or  not.  He  had 
written  to  her. 

Breakfast  went  on  in  the  usual  dismal  silence, 
broken  every  now  and  then  by  one  of  Mrs.  Shine's 
automatic  sighs.  For  Molly,  the  whole  room  had 
grown  suddenly  larger,  its  three  other  inmates  were 
no  longer  there,  the  yellow  vases  that  flanked  the 
clock  on  the  mantelpiece  had  turned  the  duller 
yellow  of  gold,  and  through  the  cheap  looking-glass 
on  the  wall  she  seemed  to  see  long  pergolas  of  sun- 
lit flowers  that  died  away  in  a  riot  of  color  and 
loveliness — the  garden  of  a  fairy  palace. 

It  was  only  the  reflection  from  the  door  which 
she  had  left  slightly  ajar,  but  it  does  not  matter 
what  things  are ;  it  is  what  they  seem  that  counts. 

Molly  was  suddenly  living  in  a  world  where 
nothing  was  so  unreal  that  it  could  not  happen,  nor 
anything  so  real  that  it  could  not  be  dispensed  with 
at  will.  The  most  ordinary  things  had  become 
wonderful;  the  most  wonderful  things  had  become 
ordinary. 

He  had  written  to  her. 

The  meal  came  to  an  end,  and  Mrs.  Shine  and 
Gladys  disappeared  to  wash  up. 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Samuel  Shine  slowly  filled  a  large  pipe  with 
tobacco  of  a  suspiciously  dark  color.  Suddenly  he 
spoke. 

"About  young  Goyle,"  he  said.  Molly  waited. 
"I  dare  say  you  know  Vs  got  a  'ankering  after 
you?" 

"He  hasn't  said  so." 

"You've  only  got  to  look  at  'im  a  bit,  and  'e 
would." 

"Perhaps  he  would." 

"Well,  then?" 

"I  couldn't  marry  him,  father."  She  spoke  with 
a  quiet  determination.  She  wanted  to  avoid  a 
scene. 

"Supposing  I  said  you  was  to?" 

"I  should  disobey  you." 

"Would  you?  You  don't  think  you  owe  any- 
thing to  your  parents,  I  suppose  ?" 

"Not  that." 

"I've  reared  you  and  I've  kept  you,  my  girl, 
and  now  you're  throwin'  over  your  job  because  you 
couldn't  keep  a  man  in  'is  place,  which  is  a  thing 
any  girl's  supposed  to  be  able  to  do.  An'  there 
conies  along  a  man  like  young  Sid  Goyle,  'oo  can 
keep  you,  and  won't  knock  you  about  if  you  be'ave 
yourself — and  you  say  'No.'  You'll  just  go  on 
living  on  your  father.  Well,  it  won't  do." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Then  Molly  spoke. 
Her  hand  clutched  a  little  nervously  at  her  breast, 
where  lay  the  unopened  letter. 

"I  will  never  marry  Mr.  Goyle,  father,"  she 
said,  "not  even  if  you  were  to  turn  me  into  the 

32 


MR.    AND   MRS.    SHINE 

streets;  he  is  a  nice  man,  I  dare  say,  but  I  don't 
love  him,  and  I  never  could." 

"  'Ow  do  you  know?"  said  her  father.  "You 
don't  love  anyone  else,  do  you  ?  'Ow  do  you  know 
you  couldn't  never  love  Sid  Goyle?" 

Molly's  hand  felt  the  letter  lying  in  her  frock. 

"I  just  do  know,"  she  said  simply. 

Her  father  swung  round. 

"Damn  you  all!"  he  said.  "I  don't  know  what 
to  do  with  you."  He  turned  again.  "Well,  get 
out,"  he  shouted;  "get  out,  and  get  a  job  of  your 
own!" 

Molly  turned  to  the  door;  as  she  was  going  out 
she  heard  his  voice  again. 

"Moll,"  he  said,  "I'm  sorry,  girl — I  didn't  mean 
to  speak  to  you  like  that.  I'm  getting  old,  and  the 
drink's  breaking  me  up,  too.  And  Em — my  God, 
Em!  If  you  only  knew  what  she  was  at  night — 
it's  hell  and  wickedness  and  Bible  talk  all  the  time. 
I  sometimes  wonder  'ow  long  I'll  keep  my  'ands 
off  Em." 

He  stopped,  and  a  pathetic  little  smile  twisted 
his  lips. 

"But  she  weren't  always  this  way,"  he  said.  "I 
find  I  love  her  better  when  I'm  drunk;  I  can  think 
she's  the  old  Em  then." 

Molly  came  back. 

"Poor  old  father !"  she  said.  "I'm  sorry  I  You 
and  I  understand  each  other  a  bit,  don't  you  think? 
Do  you  remember  the  day  I  ran  out  of  church 
when  the  man  said  the  world  was  a  nest  of  vipers?" 

The  man  shook  his  head. 
33 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  remember.     I  beat  you,  Moll." 

"Yes;  but  we  kissed  each  other  good-night,  didn't 
we?" 

"I'm  a  rotten  lot,  Moll,"  he  said,  "and  the 
drink's  got  me;  I'll  get  worse,  you'll  see,  instead  of 
better.  But  you're  a  good  girl — thank  God! — 
though  I  don't  deserve  it."  He  put  his  hand  into 
his  pocket. 

"Here,"  he  said,  holding  out  a  shilling,  "I  can't 
get  'appily  drunk  if  I  know  you  ain't  going  to  have 
any  dinner." 

She  took  it  and  kissed  him.  She  felt  dreadfully 
soft,  dreadfully  wicked. 

"I  hope  you  get  awful  happily  drunk,"  she  said 
in  a  whisper.  Somehow  she  felt  that  was  the  best 
she  could  wish  him. 

She  turned  into  the  passage. 

"I'll  come  back  with  a  job  to-day,"  she  said. 
"You  see  if  I  don't." 

She  heard  his  heavy  footsteps  going  up  the  stairs 
as  she  went  out,  and  as  she  closed  the  door  she 
heard  her  mother's  whining  voice  calling  from  the 
kitchen:  "Sam!  Sam!" 

Molly  almost  ran  up  the  street. 

Samuel  Shine  was  a  cabinet-maker  and  very  clever 
at  his  trade.  When  he  worked  his  work  was  such 
that  his  employers  overlooked  his  irregularities,  and 
were  only  too  anxious  to  secure  his  services.  Some 
years  ago  he  had  a  windfall  from  an  old  relation 
and  had  bought  a  small  annuity.  It  was  not  enough 
to  keep  him,  of  course,  but  it  was  enough  to  make 
him  take  weeks,  sometimes  months  even,  of  what 

34 


MR.    AND    MRS.    SHINE 

he  called  holiday.  Among  his  acquaintances  these 
were  called  drinking  bouts. 

Now  he  went  upstairs,  shaved  himself,  put  some 
money  in  his  pocket  from  a  cheap  cash-box,  stole 
quietly  downstairs,  and  disappeared  for  the  day. 
When  next  he  should  be  seen  at  Number  Three,  it 
would  be  an  entirely  different  man. 

Molly  walked  some  way  before  she  opened  her 
letter.  She  looked  at  the  handwriting  and  won- 
dered that  it  was  so  good.  He  hadn't  seemed  that 
kind  of  man. 

Then  she  opened  the  envelop.  Postal  orders 
for  two  pounds  were  inside. 

For  a  moment  she  went  hot  all  over.  She  was 
bitterly,  dreadfully  ashamed.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
begged  from  him.  What  could  he  think  of  her,  to 
send  her  money  like  that?  She  crushed  the  orders 
in  her  hand. 

Of  course,  that  wasn't  his  writing.  He  had 
simply  told  someone  to  send  it.  She  was  just  a 
charity.  Well,  she  thought  to  herself,  why  should 
she  hope  he  would  regard  her  as  anything  else? 
She  was  too  shabby  to  be  suspected  of  pride,  after  all. 

Then  she  discovered  the  note  inside.  Her  fingers 
trembled  as  she  drew  it  out.  It  was  very  short  and 
dreadfully  badly  written,  but  she  smiled  when  she 
read  the  quaint  sentences,  and  her  anger  vanished 
as  if  at  a  magic  touch. 

"DEAR  Miss  SHINE"  (he  had  written),  "I  be- 
lieve you  said  two  pounds  a  week  would  buy  you  a 
sufficient  number  of  silly  books.  Please  allow  me 

35 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

to  be  your  librarian  to  that  extent.  I  should  be  so 
proud  to  feel  that  someone  was  looking  upon  me 
as  a  dream-monger.  Will  you?  It  is  going  to  be 
a  fine  evening,  thank  God. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"WYNNINGHAME." 

She  read  the  little  letter  again  and  again.  Her 
dream-monger!  It  seemed  a  wonderful  word  to 
her;  it  made  her  feel  that  London  was  a  little  place, 
and  that  she  had  a  great  many  friends.  She 
climbed  on  to  a  'bus  and  after  a  long  ride  reached 
Regent's  Park.  She  walked  to  the  seat  where  he 
had  sat  down  with  her,  and  she  began  to  think. 
She  couldn't  take  the  money,  of  course.  And  yet — 
what  would  he  think  of  her  if  she  didn't?  He 
would  think  she  was  just  a  conventional,  silly  girl 
who  was  afraid  of  the  dreams  she  professed  to  love. 
But  what  would  the  family  say?  She  saw  no  reason 
why  they  should  know — she  could  think  of  some 
story  or  other.  But  if  she  refused,  the  last — the 
only  link  between  her  and  her  dream-monger  would 
be  broken.  She  wouldn't — she  Couldn't  refuse. 
You  see,  poor  Molly  hung  on  to  her  star  with  a 
pathetic  indifference  to  her  difficulties.  Whatever 
happened,  she  was  determined  that  he  should  never 
think  she  was  afraid.  His  own  words  kept  ringing 
in  her  head :  "Dreams — stick  to  them,  cling  to  them, 
my  child,  even  if  you  lose  everything  else."  And 
she  was  going  to  cling  to  them,  she  said.  She 
wouldn't  acknowledge  that  it  was  to  him  she  was 
clinging. 

36 


MR.    AND   MRS.    SHINE 

She  went  out  of  the  Park  and  bought  some  paper 
and  envelops,  then  she  sat  down  and  began  to 
think  of  what  she  should  say  to  him.  Finally  she 
wrote  this,  with  a  badly  sucked  pencil: 

"DEAR  SIR, — I  ought  not  to  take  it.  But,  if  you 
please,  I  will  and  thank  you. 

"MOLLY  SHINE 

"P.  S. — I  am  afraid  I  do  not  know  how  to  ad- 
dress a  Duke." 

The  envelope  she  addressed  to — 
"The  Duke, 

"Wynninghame    House, 
"Piccadilly." 

And  she  determined  to  deliver  her  note  there 
herself.  She  wanted  the  little  thrill  of  seeing  where 
he  lived,  quite  close. 

She  walked  to  Piccadilly  and  stopped  outside  the 
great  gates  with  the  two  lions  on  their  tops.  Some- 
how it  looked  much  too  like  a  prison  for  a  dream- 
monger  to  lodge  there.  Then  she  took  her  courage 
in  both  hands  and  walked  up  the  step  to  the  large 
front  doors.  She  turned  a  little  white  as  she 
pressed  the  bell,  and  her  heart  seemed  to  stand 
quite  still  when  they  swung  back  and  revealed  a 
grave-looking  man-servant.  Somewhere  in  there, 
she  thought,  he  is  sitting  with  his  books — roomfuls 
of  them;  and  his  dreams — universes  of  them. 

She  handed  her  note  to  the  man. 

37 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Please,  sir,"  she  said,  "is  the  Duke  of  Wynning- 
hame  at  home?" 

"No,  miss,"  he  answered  her.  "His  Grace  left 
for  Paris  this  morning." 

Left!  The  palace  was  there,  but  the  magician 
was  away.  Paris?  He  might  just  as  well  have 
been  in  the  Antipodes.  He  was  gone.  London  got 
larger  and  larger  till  it  was  all  Bermondsey.  Even 
tears  came  into  her  eyes. 

"Shall  I  leave  him  this  note,  miss?"  the  man  was 
saying. 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  stammered,  feeling  her  face 
growing  red.  The  doors  shut  and  she  went  slowly 
down  the  steps.  Of  course,  why  should  he  be 
there?  Mentally,  she  shook  herself  for  behaving 
like  a  child.  Only,  she  had  been  imagining  him 
inside,  all  the  way  from  Regent's  Park;  and  it  had 
been  a  sudden  shock  to  her  to  find  the  palace  empty. 

As  she  drifted  out  into  Piccadilly,  a  curious 
thought  struck  her.  Paris!  In  the  silly  books  a 
great  deal  was  said  about  Paris.  She  found  herself 
hoping  he  had  not  a  large  connection  as  a  dream- 
monger;  in  fact,  that  she  was  his  only  client.  She 
had  to  laugh  at  herself,  but  it  wasn't  a  very  satis- 
factory laugh. 

Meanwhile,  her  little  note,  placed  on  the  Duke's 
desk  by  a  careless  man-servant,  slipped  into  the 
waste-paper  basket,  and  left  Wynninghame  House 
almost  as  soon  as  it  had  entered  it. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   GOLDEN   TOAD 

THE  DUKE  lay  back  in  his  chair  at  the  hotel  in 
Paris;  his  eyes  were  closed  and  his  finger-tips 
pressed  lightly  together.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
mantelpiece  Peter  Graine  was  talking. 

"You  have  made  an  absolute  fool  of  yourself, 
Henry,"  he  was  saying.  "Here  we  have  all  the 
modern  scientists  that  matter — practically  the  entire 
scientific  brains  of  the  universe  gathered  together 
in  one  room,"  he  waved  an  arm,  dramatically, 
"Doussac,  Carnforth,  Mardovitch,  von  Rosen — and 
you  stand  up  and  talk  absolute  rubbish  to  them 
for  an  hour.  If  you  didn't  happen  to  be  an  English 
peer  you  would  have  been  thrown  out  of  the  Con- 
ference. As  it  was,  von  Rosen  absolutely  pulver- 
ized you." 

"It  is  quite  easy  for  a  materialist  to  pulverize 
anyone,"  said  the  Duke,  slowly;  "equally  easily 
could  I  have  pulverized  von  Rosen  by  asking  him 
where  the  wind  started;  but  one  refrains.  The 
victories  of  facts  and  figures  are  the  most  easily 
won,  but  they  carry  little  booty  with  them.  The 

victories  of  faith,  on  the  other  hand "  He  broke 

off.  "I  gather  you  don't  believe  in  the  golden 
toad,  then,  Peter?" 

The  Professor  gave  a  short  laugh. 

"The  thing  is  ridiculous,  Henry,"  he  said. 
39 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"There  is  no  known  genus  that  could  produce  such 
a  species." 

"There  is  no  known  personality  that  produces 
electricity,"  murmured  the  Duke. 

Graine  snorted.  This  sort  of  thing  irritated 
him. 

"Look  here,  Henry,"  he  said.  "The  whole  thing 
is  perfectly  obvious  to  anyone  that  knows  you. 
This  man  Cook,  in  1883,  wrote  a  letter  saying  that 
he  captured  and  lost  a  toad  which  was  of  complete 
gold  coloring.  Being  fantastic,  the  thing  appeals 
to  you.  You  write  an  absurd  paper  endeavoring 
to  prove  the  possibility  of  this  phenomenon.  Von 
Rosen  refutes  the  whole  thing,  and  Doussac  shows, 
beyond  any  doubt,  that  the  man  Cook  happened  to 
be  a  confirmed  drunkard.  There  you  are!" 

"Perhaps,  if  Doussac  could  have  shown  that 
Cook  was  drunk  on  the  island,  but  he  couldn't. 
You  cannot  get  whisky  on  a  desert  island." 

"What  is  the  use  of  arguing  with  you?"  said 
the  Professor.  "In  many  ways  you  are  a  simple- 
ton, Henry.  Any  beggar  in  the  street  can  take 
you  in  with  a  plausible  tale;  a  woman  or  a  child 
can  take  you  in  by  simply  standing  and  looking  at 
you.  You  persist  in  believing  that  everybody  is  an 
angel  from  heaven.  Upon  my  word,  I  think  the 
mere  fact  that  it  isn't  so  makes  you  believe  it!" 

"The  things  worth  looking  for,"  said  the  Duke, 
"are  the  things  that  everybody  says  do  not  exist; 
it  is  obviously  dull  to  find  things  that  you  knew 
all  the  time  were  there." 

"Anyway,"  said  Graine,  "I  trust  your  contribu- 
40 


THE    GOLDEN    TOAD 

tion  to  the  Conference  will  not  be  reported  in  the 
papers." 

The  Duke  rose  and  knocked  out  his  pipe. 

"Would  you  be  surprised  to  hear,"  he  said, 
"that  I  am  going  to  look  for  my  toad?" 

"Going  to  look  for  it?" 

"Certainly.  I  am  going  to  that  island  in  the 
South  Seas  that  Cook  spoke  of.  For  many  reasons, 
I  believe  the  thing  exists.  The  fact  that  all  those 
reasons  have  been  refuted  by  Herr  von  Rosen  and 
M.  Doussac  does  not  disturb  me  in  the  least." 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  think  both  von  Rosen  and  Doussac 
are  entirely  lacking  in  imagination.  What  lies  at 
the  root  of  a  good  scientist,  Pete,  though  I  am  per- 
fectly well  aware  that  you  will  deny  it,  is  imagina- 
tion. Look  at  Leonardo  da  Vinci." 

"Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  not  a  scientist." 

"Nevertheless,  were  he  to  come  to  life  to-day  and 
were  you  to  argue  with  him  on  any  subject  you  cared 
to  choose,  he  would,  to  use  your  own  phrase,  Peter, 
pulverize  you." 

"Supposing  I  were  to  ask  him  questions  concern- 
ing the  lateral  formation  of  the  hippocampus  minor, 
he  would  have  nothing  to  say." 

"And  I  hold  that  any  man  with  imagination  and 
a  fluent  tongue  would  find  something  to  say,  even 
about  the  hippocampus  minor,  which  is  a  ludicrous 
thing  for  anyone  to  talk  about." 

Peter  Graine  smiled. 

"Your  theory  of  life,  Henry,"  he  said,  "would 
make  interesting  reading." 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  have  no  theory  of  life,"  said  the  other,  "but 
I  have  a  theory  of  living — for  myself." 

"And  that  is?" 

The  Duke  smiled. 

"No,  Peter,"  he  said.  "If  I  were  to  tell  you 
you  would  only  go  and  warn  Octavia  about  it.  All 
I  ask  is  that  when  I  do  something  grotesque  you 
will  try  to  bear  in  mind  that  somewhere  behind  that 
is  my  theory  of  living." 

He  went  over  to  the  large  window  with  its  violent 
brocade  curtains  and  yellow  tassels  and  looked  out 
on  the  people  in  the  streets.  He  stood  there  for 
some  time,  a  little  smile  playing  about  his  lips. 

"  'Plus  je  vois  des  hommes,  plus  j'aime  mon 
chien,'  "  he  said  suddenly.  "The  man  who  wrote 
that  should  be  hanged." 

"And  how  would  you  alter  it?"  said  the 
Professor. 

"Plus  je  vois  des  hommes  et  des  animaux,  plus 
j'aime  le  monde." 

Peter  Graine  laughed. 

"Et  les  femmes?"  he  asked. 

"Mais  elles  ne  sont  pas  du  monde,  n'est  ce  pas?" 
the  Duke  said,  suddenly  digging  his  friend  violently 
in  the  ribs.  "Surely  you  are  not  going  to  waste 
your  last  night  in  Paris?" 

"Certainly  not,"  returned  the  Professor,  picking 
up  his  cloak.  "I  have  a  supper  party.  You're 
not  really  going  on  an  expedition  to  the  South  Seas, 
Henry?" 

"Certainly  I  am." 

"But  it's  absurd." 

42 


THE    GOLDEN    TOAD 

"Perhaps;  but  there  is  an  outside  chance  in  every- 
thing. Can  you  imagine  the  sensations  of  the  mo- 
ment when  I  dangle  a  golden  toad  in  the  face  of 
von  Rosen?" 

Peter  laughed. 

"No,  I  can't,"  he  said. 

"Who  is  the  lady  to-night,  Peter?"  asked  the 
Duke  as  he  slid  back  into  his  armchair. 

"A  supper  party  of  young  Henry  Bourrien. 
Can't  I  tempt  you  to  join  us?" 

"Hardly,"  returned  the  Duke.  "I  am  afraid  I 
should  find  M.  Bourrien's  friends  a  little  too  bril- 
liant for  me." 

The  Professor  turned. 

"Henry,"  he  said,  "it  is  positively  disgusting  for 
a  man  of  your  age  to  be  entirely  unmoved  by  the 
sight  of  a  pretty  woman.  You  talk  a  great  deal 
about  beauty,  but  you  don't  know  what  beauty  is. 
You  don't  know  the  difference  between  a  frock  from 
Redfern's  and  an  overall !  You  are  a  fish." 

He  gazed  at  the  Duke,  who  sat  twiddling  a  paper- 
knife  in  his  long  fingers.  Graine  frowned. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  think  women  are  for?" 
he  said. 

The  Duke  laid  down  the  paper-knife. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "that  women  were  created  in 
order  to  give  a  man  the  opportunity  of  becoming  a 
gentleman." 

The  Professor  made  a  gesture  of  disgust,  as  he 
opened  the  door. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  he  said,  "what  is  the  matter 
with  you.  You  are  a  prig,  Henry." 

43 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  selected  his  book  from  the  table. 

"There  are  worse  things,"  he  said  slowly,  "than 
being  a  prig." 

The  door  banged,  and  the  outraged  Professor 
stalked  out  into  the  night  to  enjoy  himself. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NON   SEQUITUR 

FOR  two  weeks  everything  went  as  well  as  possible 
with  Molly.  The  girl  in  the  draper's  up  the  street 
fell  ill  and  her  position  was  given  to  Molly  tempo- 
rarily. Each  Saturday  she  had  been  able  to  inter- 
cept the  post  which  brought  the  coronated  letter,  or 
explain  it  as  from  a  girl  friend ;  and  her  salary  from 
the  shop  was  enough  to  account  for  the  novels  which 
found  their  way  into  her  bedroom,  though  her 
mother  had  several  Biblical  texts  to  repeat  dealing 
with  the  subject  of  extravagance. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Molly  chose  her  books, 
at  present,  almost  solely  from  the  pictures  on  the 
jackets.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that  these  gen- 
erally depicted  an  almost  incredibly  athletic-looking 
man,  holding  in  his  arms  a  woman  with  a  quite 
impossible  complexion.  At  the  same  time  the  con- 
tents were  generally  clean,  and  somehow  the  more 
villainous  characters  seemed  unreal,  while  the  very 
good  and  noble  people  seemed  quite  possible  to 
Molly.  From  which  you  will  perceive  that  she 
was  well  fitted  to  be  a  brilliant  pupil  of  any  dream- 
monger. 

This  Saturday  afternoon  the  volume  she  was 
bringing  home  was  entitled  "The  Path  of  Patricia," 
and  the  picture  on  the  cover  had  suggested  to  Molly 
that  it  might  be  a  pleasant  path.  As  she  walked 

45 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

along  the  pavement  of  Ball  Street  she  felt  very 
happy.  It  is  really  rather  wonderful  to  have  one's 
feet  in  Bermondsey  and  one's  head  in  Piccadilly; 
but  Molly  was  accomplishing  that  feat  as  she 
stepped  up  to  the  little  front  door  and  walked  into 
the  sitting-room  of  Number  Three.  Once  inside, 
her  thoughts  came  swooping  to  earth  with  the  speed 
of  an  aerial  torpedo. 

Sidney  Goyle  was  sitting  in  the  armchair,  his 
long  legs  stretched  out  on  the  well-worn  rug.  He 
was  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  with  an  anemic 
face,  rather  listless  gray  eyes,  and  a  straggly  yellow- 
brown  moustache.  He,  too,  had  yearnings  after 
literature,  and  on  that  account  partly,  he  considered 
that  he  should  be  attractive  in  Molly's  eyes.  But 
unfortunately  Sidney  Goyle  was  not  honest  with 
himself;  he  wished  to  be  thought  literary  rather 
than  be  literary.  One  of  the  results  of  this  was  that 
he  martyred  himself  considerably  by  reading  books 
which  he  didn't  understand  and  which  could  give 
him  no  satisfaction.  But,  for  all  that,  he  was  a 
nice  young  man,  and  had  the  reputation  of  being 
very  "steady."  As  Molly  came  in  the  room 
Mrs.  Shine  slipped  out.  Molly  knew  instinctively 
that  Sidney  Goyle  was  going  to  propose  to  her. 

"Good  afternoon,  Miss  Shine,"  he  said,  getting 
up  awkwardly  and  speaking  in  a  thin,  rather  high 
voice  that  gave  one  the  idea  that  he  had  taken  a 
great  deal  too  much  trouble  in  cultivating  it. 

"Good  afternoon,"  said  Molly,  removing  the 
pins  from  her  hat. 

"Have  you  been  reading  much  lately?"  he 
46 


NON    SEQUITUR 

said,  picking  up  "The  Path  of  Patricia,"  which  she 
had  placed  on  the  table. 

"Oh,  only  silly  books,"  she  said. 

Mr.  Goyle  raised  his  eyebrows  at  the  picture  on 
the  jacket. 

"I  dare  say  this  is  quite  good,"  he  said.  "I've 
been  reading  philosophy  lately.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  you  know." 

She  didn't  know  a  bit,  but  she  nodded. 

"You  ought  to  read  a  few  really  good  books," 
he  went  on;  "one  gets  so  much  more  out  of  them 
— they  feed  one."  He  gave  a  little  wave  of  the 
hand,  vaguely.  "One  gets  a  bigger  grasp,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  said  Molly. 

There  was  a  silence. 

"I've  thought  we  might  read  together,  perhaps, 
if  you  cared  to,"  said  Sidney  Goyle,  with  the  least 
possible  air  of  a  Maecenas. 

"Oh!  I'd  be  stupid,"  she  said  quickly. 

"Poohl"  He  waved  his  hand  again.  "You're 
afraid  of  the  good  books." 

"Perhaps  I  am,"  she  said.  Somehow  she  didn't 
see  Sidney  Goyle  as  a  dream-monger. 

"But  that's  a  great  mistake,  Molly,"  he  said. 
"I  may  call  you  Molly,  mayn't  I  ?" 

She  said  nothing.  It  was  coming.  Oh!  why 
didn't  he  get  to  it  at  once?  Ought  she  to  anticipate 
him?  He  was  impossible,  dreadful — she  saw  him 
out  of  the  corner  of  her  eyes.  How  could  he  hope 
to  be  a  dream-monger?  He  was  talking  again; 
she  forced  herself  to  listen — to  take  him  seriously. 

"I  wonder,"  he  was  saying,  "I  wonder  if  you 
47 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

could  ever  care  for  me,  Molly.  We  both  love 
books  and  literature;  we  have  so  much  in  common. 
I  don't  want  an  answer  all  at  once — but  if  you 
thought  you  could — we  could  get  married  fairly 
soon.  I  could  take  a  little  house — we  could  have 
a  library." 

She  saw  that  little  house  and  shuddered.  He 
was  going  on  talking.  Why  couldn't  she  stop  him? 
She  felt  as  if  someone  had  tied  her  tongue;  some- 
how the  whole  thing  seemed  preposterous  and 
grotesque. 

He  was  coming  over  to  her. 

"What  do  you  think  about  it,  little  woman?"  he 
was  saying.  "Don't  you  feel  we'd  get  on  fine?" 

What  was  he  doing?  He  was  putting  his  arm 
round  her  waist;  he  was  going  to  kiss  her. 

"Don't  touch  me!"  she  cried  suddenly.  "How 
dare  you?" 

He  started  back,  looking  at  her  as  if  he 
couldn't  believe  his  ears. 

A  sudden  wave  of  pity  for  him  came  over  her. 
He  had  meant  to  be  kind.  He  didn't  know.  She 
put  out  her  hand  and  took  his. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  said;  "I  didn't  mean  to  be 
unkind;  I  couldn't  marry  you — no,"  as  she  saw  he 
was  about  to  speak,  "not  if  I  thought  it  over  for 
years — I  don't  love  you — I  couldn't  ever  love  you. 
I  don't  mean  to  hurt  you.  .  .  ." 

She  went  on  talking  to  him,  telling  him  she  was 
honored  by  his  proposal,  telling  him  a  great  many 
things  which  were  quite  untrue.  She  felt  that  what- 
ever happened  she  must  prevent  htm  opening  his 

48 


NON    SEQUITUR 

mouth  again.  And  as  she  talked  she  did  not  hear 
the  postman's  knock  or  her  mother's  footsteps  in 
the  passage. 

Mrs.  Shine  took  the  single  letter  and,  fumbling 
for  her  glasses,  stared  at  the  address.  She  saw  that 
it  was  for  Molly,  but  she  had  always  opened  her 
children's  letters  without  any  scruples,  and,  not 
knowing  this  handwriting,  she  immediately  tore 
open  the  envelop.  Inside  were  two  one-pound 
postal  orders. 

Mrs.  Shine  gazed  at  them  for  a  moment  blankly. 
Then  she  turned  over  the  envelop.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  it.  It  was  addressed  to  Molly.  She 
turned  it  over  again,  and  suddenly  her  hand  fell  to 
her  side.  She  stared  straight  in  front  of  her,  stand- 
ing quite  still,  unnaturally  still. 

This,  then,  was  the  secret  of  these  late  extrava- 
gances! Mrs.  Shine  had  noticed,  in  her  less  bitter 
moments,  that  her  daughter,  who  seemed  to  her 
only  yesterday  to  be  a  grubby  child  with  one  ragged 
pigtail,  was  growing  into  a  beautiful  woman.  In 
her  own  mind  any  kind  of  beauty  was  vaguely  con- 
nected with  wickedness;  and  now  .  .  .  She 
crushed  the  letter  in  her  yellow,  bony  hand. 

She  heard  her  daughter's  voice  in  the  sitting- 
room.  What  she  was  saying  she  could  not  hear. 
A  man  was  proposing  to  her;  Mrs.  Shine  knew  that 
was  going  to  happen.  And  now — now  Molly  was 
not  fit  to  be  the  wife  of  a  decent  man. 

For  a  moment  she  thought  she  was  going  to 
faint;  it  was  impossible,  incredible.  They  had 
always  been  respectable;  her  husband's  drinking 

49 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

bouts  belonged  to  another  category  in  the  society 
she  lived  in.  But  this?  This  meant  fingers  pointed 
in  scorn,  whisperings,  even  laughter.  What  would 
Sam  say  to  this?  For  a  few  seconds  she  stood 
there  realizing  the  thing  that  had  happened. 
Gradually  a  hard  light  came  into  her  eyes — the 
light  one  sees  in  the  eyes  of  a  fanatic. 

She  turned  the  handle  of  the  sitting-room  door 
and  went  in. 

There  are  many  people  who  cannot  forgive  sins 
that  are  beyond  repair.  When  there  is  nothing  to 
be  done  but  suffer,  they  are  less  ready  to  alleviate 
that  suffering  with  the  balm  of  understanding.  If 
a  murderer  could  bring  his  victim  back  to  life,  we 
could  find  excuses  for  his  mistake.  It  is  the  irre- 
trievable that  is  unforgivable  as  much  in  Park  Lane 
as  in  Stockwell  and  the  Mile  End  Road,  for  human 
forgiveness  is  as  illogical  as  human  punishment  and 
human  sin.  That  is  a  common  enough  fault.  But 
Molly's  mother  was  not  even  of  these. 

Mrs.  Shine  was  a  sort  of  negative  Medea.  She 
was  of  the  blood  of  those  who  burned  witches  and 
bishops  indiscriminately.  Her  gospel  was  a  gospel 
of  repression.  She  did  not  believe  that  any  good 
could  come  out  of  a  human  being  till  it  had  first  been 
driven  in  with  a  hammer.  With  this  child  the 
hammer  had  not  been  heavy  enough — that  was  all. 

Thus,  having  made  up  her  mind  that  Molly's 
soul  was  irretrievably  lost,  no  thought  of  trying  to 
find  it  entered  her  mind.  As  she  went  into  the  room 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  Mrs.  Shine  hated  no  one  so 
much  as  her  elder  daughter. 


NON    SEQUITUR 

Molly  still  had  Sidney  Goyle's  hand  in  hers,  and 
was  still  trying  to  pour  oil  on  the  ruffled  waters  of 
that  young  man's  conceit. 

"We  should  hate  each  other  in  a  week,"  she  was 
saying.  "I'm  such  a  fool,  and  you  are  so  clever; 
I  know  you'll  see  I'm  right  when  you  think  it  over." 
She  gave  a  little  laugh.  "And  you  wouldn't  be  able 
to  get  rid  of  me,  you  know,"  she  added. 

"Jezebel!"  The  word  came  in  a  kind  of  biting 
whisper  from  the  other  side  of  the  deal  table.  The 
absurd  melodramatic  interruption  made  the  two 
swing  round  almost  simultaneously.  For  a  moment 
Molly  thought  her  mother  was  mad.  She  was 
standing  staring  at  her,  her  thin  lips  almost  white 
and  drawn  down  at  the  corners  with  an  unnatural 
tightness;  her  gray  eyes  looked  like  circles  of 
polished  granite. 

Sidney  Goyle's  mouth  hung  open,  making  him 
look  more  than  ever  like  an  imbecile. 

"Why,  mother!"  said  Molly  slowly.  "What's 
the  matter  with  you?" 

Mrs.  Shine  shifted  her  eyes  to  the  young  man. 

"Mr.  Goyle,"  she  said,  "you  came  'ere  to  make 
an  offer  of  marriage  to  my  daughter;  you  can  take 
it  back;  she  ain't  fit  to  marry  you  nor  any  decent 
man.  I  know  my  duty.  The  Lord  'as  chosen  me 
to  tell  you  the  truth  an'  I'll  tell  it,  if  it's  my  death." 

There  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"Mother,"  cried  Molly  suddenly,  "are  you 
mad?" 

"Better  for  me  if  I  was — or  dead,"  answered 
Mrs.  Shine.  Her  expression  changed  suddenly  to 

51 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

one  of  fury.  She  flung  the  letter  and  the  two  postal 
orders  down  on  the  table. 

" 'Oo  sent  you  that?"  she  cried.  '"Go's  been 
sending  you  two  pounds  each  week,  an'  you  sayin' 
it's  a  girl  writing  from  the  boot  store?"  She  leaned 
across  the  table.  "No  more  lies,  if  you  please — 
time's  past  for  lying.  'Oo  is  it?"  Her  voice  sunk 
to  a  whisper  again.  "Is  it  a  man?"  she  said. 

Molly  stared  stupidly  at  the  orders  and  the  en- 
velop. Somehow  she  had  never  pictured  it  hap- 
pening like  this.  The  first  thing  her  mother  should 
think  of!  Her  mother  ...  It  was  sordid, 
horrible.  The  door  had  opened,  and  Gladys  was 
in  the  room;  she  realized  at  once  that  something 
dreadful  had  happened.  Molly  saw  her  without 
taking  her  eyes  off  the  table.  No  one  moved. 

"Is  it  a  man?"  her  mother  repeated  in  that  awful 
whisper. 

Still  the  hopeless  silence.  Even  the  ticking  of 
the  clock  on  the  mantelpiece  seemed  an  imperti- 
nence. Sidney  Goyle  all  at  once  took  his  hand  off 
the  sofa  back  and  examined  his  nails,  like  a  man 
who  feels  suddenly  awkward  at  a  tea-party.  Up 
the  street  a  man  began  to  whistle.  "You  Made  Me 
Love  You"  in  a  mixture  of  keys.  He  came  nearer, 
and  Molly  recognized  her  father.  He  always 
whistled  that  when  he  was  fuddled  and  happy. 
She  suddenly  found  her  voice. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "it  is  a  man." 

No  one  moved. 

Mr.  Shine  was  passing  the  window  and  was 
humming  his  song  to  himself  with  intense  satisfac- 

52 


NON    SEQUITUR 

tion.  Sidney  Goyle  suddenly  woke  up  to  the  irony 
of  the  obbligato. 

"My  God!"  he  said,  and,  turning  his  back, 
stared  out  of  the  window. 

Mrs.  Shine  opened  her  mouth  to  say  something, 
then  closed  it  like  a  trap  as  she  heard  the  front  door 
shut.  The  father  was  in  the  passage;  he  sounded 
very  cheerful.  Gladys,  standing  pressed  up  against 
the  yellow  sideboard,  shivered. 

A  moment  later  and  Mr.  Shine  was  in  the  room. 
He  saw  at  once  that  one  of  his  hated  "scenes"  was 
in  progress.  Samuel  Shine  hardly  ever  became 
really  drunk;  it  is  too  expensive  a  proceeding  for  a 
seasoned  toper.  But  when  he  had  absorbed  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  alcohol,  the  soft  parts  of  his  nature 
seemed  to  merge  into  a  general  hard  cheerfulness 
and  a  capacity  for  furious  anger  should  anything 
happen  to  disturb  his  good  spirits.  Now  he  looked 
round  the  room  and  its  motionless  occupants  with  a 
sort  of  intuition  that  something  unpleasant  was 
going  to  be  said  which  would  jar  upon  his  artificial 
cheeriness.  A  wave  of  anger  came  over  him.  It 
was  uneconomical  to  get  drunk  if  you  were  to  be 
annoyed  in  the  process  of  enjoying  it.  He  turned 
to  his  wife. 

"What's  all  this?"  he  said  in  a  hostile  tone. 

Mrs.  Shine  pointed  to  the  papers  on  the  table. 

"She's  been  getting  that  every  week  from  a 
man,"  she  said;  "that's  what  it  is.  Our  daughter 
ain't  fit  to  marry  anybody  as  is  honest,  any  longer." 
Her  husband  was  looking  at  the  postal  orders  and 
the  envelop. 

53 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"D'you  understand?"  she  asked  shrilly. 

He  said  nothing. 

"It's  a  judgment  on  us,"  she  went  on,  with  a 
return  to  the  whine  that  he  knew  so  well.  "The 
Lord's  visited  your  'ouse,  Sam,  with  no  uncertain 
'and.  It's  a  judgment  on  you  that  the  daughter  I 
bore  should  be  no  better  than  a  common " 

Mr.  Shine  looked  at  her. 

"I  won't  'ave  those  words  used  'ere,"  he  said, 
and  turned  to  Molly. 

"Is  this  true?"  he  asked. 

She  did  not  answer.  Somehow  it  seemed  to  her 
extraordinary  that  all  these  people  should  take  this 
thing  for  granted.  They  did  not  even  imagine  any 
other  explanation  possible.  She  looked  round  at 
them  with  their  shocked,  awed  faces.  How  could 
she  tell  them  the  truth?  Far  from  believing  it, 
they  wouldn't  even  understand  it. 

And  yet  in  a  queer  way  she  realized  that  they 
were  right.  It  was  she  who  was  beating  her  wings 
against  the  bars  of  the  cage  that  is  called  the  world. 
Her  family  all  seemed  suddenly  to  have  become 
strangers  to  her,  but  she  saw  that  they  understood 
each  other,  and  that  it  was  she  who  had  refused  to 
play  the  game  of  life  according  to  the  rules.  She 
was  a  rebel,  and  rebels  are  in  the  wrong  when  they 
are  in  the  minority.  She  had  the  sense  not  to 
pretend  to  herself  that  she  was  a  martyr.  They 
were  forcing  her  to  play  according  to  rules  she  had 
never  agreed  to;  but  then,  she  thought,  neither 
had  they.  She  saw  her  father's  face  growing  more 
stern  as  she  did  not  answer,  and  she  felt  somehow 

54 


NON    SEQUITUR 

sorry  for  him.  Her  mind  traveled  back  to  that 
afternoon  in  Regent's  Park,  and  the  puzzle  became 
greater  still.  What  had  he  said?  "Dreams — stick 
to  them,  cling  to  them,  my  child,  even  if  you  lose 
everything  else."  To  her  it  seemed  as  if  he  could 
not  be  wrong.  And  surely  this  was  a  good  dream ! 

She  looked  at  her  mother,  hard,  uncompromising. 
No  I  she  could  never  tell  them.  Good  or  bad,  it 
was  her  dream,  and  it  would  be  inevitably  soiled  if 
exposed  to  the  light  of  day.  When  fairy  tales  come 
true  they  cannot  be  told. 

You  cannot  serve  two  masters.  As  Molly  stood 
there  watching  her  father's  face  growing  harder 
and  harder,  she  enrolled  herself  finally  and  ab- 
solutely under  the  standard  of  the  dream-monger. 

"Is  this  true?"  he  repeated,  and  this  time  she 
looked  him  in  the  face. 

"A  man  sent  me  that,"  she  said;  "yes,  that  is 
true;  but  I  have  done  nothing  wrong." 

"Done  nothing  wrong!"  Her  father  repeated 
her  words  with  a  world  of  scorn  in  his  voice.  Then 
he  stuck  his  hands  into  his  pockets. 

"Explain,"  he  said. 

"I  can't,"  answered  Molly;  "you'll  just  have 
to  take  my  word  for  it." 

"That  a  man  sends  you  two  pounds  a  week,  and 
you  ain't  done  wrong?  D'you  think  I'm  as  simple 
as  that?" 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  don't." 

She  did  not  realize  the  profound  truth  of  what 
he  had  said.  She  just  knew  that  the  collision  had 
come  and  that  they  were  both  right.  It  was  a  silly 

55 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

collision,  because  she  had  not  done  the  thing  which 
was  causing  it.  But  it  did  not  matter.  Sooner  or 
later  the  clash  between  the  two  natures  was  bound 
to  happen.  In  a  way  the  whole  thing  was  a  pity. 
Perhaps,  if  Molly  had  never  met  the  Duke  she 
would  have  schooled  herself  in  time  to  obey  the 
rules,  like  all  the  other  players;  the  young  always 
kick  and,  after  all,  a  Duke  is  more  or  less  above  the 
law.  At  any  rate,  to  a  certain  extent  he  can  make 
his  own  conventions.  Yes,  it  looked  as  if  it  was  a 
pity  that  Henry  had  left  his  hat  just  where  he  did 
on  that  Friday  afternoon. 

"Is  that  all  you've  got  to  say?"  her  father  was 
asking. 

"Yes,  father,"  said  Molly,  "that's  all." 

For  a  moment  or  two  Samuel  Shine  was  non- 
plused. He  had  not  expected  this.  Denial,  per- 
haps; tears,  perhaps;  but  not  this.  It  was  quite 
ridiculous.  He  did  not  know  what  to  say. 

And  then  a  peculiar  thing  happened.  Sidney 
Goyle,  who  had  not  turned  round,  even  when  Mr. 
Shine  came  in,  now  faced  the  father  with  his  weak 
mouth  shut  in  a  thin  line  and  a  new  light  in  his  gray 
eyes. 

"Whatever  she's  done,"  he  said  simply,  "I  am 
willing  to  make  her  my  wife."  He  must  have 
thought  of  the  cost  while  he  stood  looking  out  of 
the  window,  for  this  sort  of  thing  never  remained  a 
secret  long  in  Bermondsey  circles.  Anyway,  there 
he  was  with  his  offer,  a  little  white,  a  little  over- 
emphasized, a  little  awkward,  but  a  man  with  his 
big  moment.  Sidney  Goyle  would  never  rise  as 

56 


NON    SEQUITUR 

high  as  that  again.  Mrs.  Shine  gulped  incred- 
ulously. 

But  Molly  laughed,  though  she  could  have  bitten 
her  tongue  out  when  she  saw  the  face  of  the  poor 
knight-errant.  The  bathos  of  the  thing!  She  had 
done  nothing,  yet  in  one  moment  to  become  Mrs. 
Goyle  had  become  an  honor  she  could  hardly  hope 
to  expect!  And  so  she  laughed — she  really  could 
not  help  it.  The  stark  tragedy  in  that  room  so 
nearly  overlapped  into  farce. 

Sidney  Goyle  looked  at  her  for  a  moment,  then 
picked  up  his  hat;  he  bowed  to  Molly  a  little 
awkwardly  and  looked  at  Mrs.  Shine. 

"It  is  no  longer,"  he  said,  "any  business  of 
mine,"  and  in  dead  silence  he  left  the  house. 

In  very  trying  circumstances  Mr.  Goyle  had 
given  an  excellent  imitation  of  a  gentleman. 

Mrs.  Shine  turned  to  her  husband. 

"She's  not  only  bad,"  she  said,  "she  don't  want 
to  be  an  honest  woman." 

"Shut  up,  Em!"  said  her  husband  brusquely. 
"Leave  it  to  me."  He  bent  over  the  table.  "Tell 
me  the  truth,"  he  said  to  Molly  hoarsely. 

"I  have  told  you  the  truth,"  she  answered. 

"You  lie!"  he  said.     "What's  the  man's  name?" 

But  Molly  was  silent.  What  difference  would  it 
make?  What  difference  could  anything  make? 

"Tell  me  his  name,"  said  her  father,  his  voice 
growing  more  harsh. 

She  just  shook  her  head. 

"Obstinate,  eh?"  His  voice  shook  a  little  with 
suppressed  passion.  "There's  never  been  a  thing 

57 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

like  this  in  my  family,  nor  in  my  father's  before  me. 
If  a  man  'ad  told  me  one  of  my  own  daughters  'ud 
go  wrong  I'd  'ave  knocked  him  down,  I  would. 
An'  you  can  laugh  at  it  I  You  must  be  bad  to  the 
bottom,  that's  what  you  must  be!" 

He  suddenly  took  her  arm  and  twisted  her  round 
so  that  his  face  was  close  to  hers. 

"Tell  me  his  name!"  he  said  in  a  sudden  access 
of  fury.  "Tell  me  his  name!" 

She  shook  her  head  and  he  let  her  go.  His 
fingers  closed  and  unclosed  spasmodically. 

"What's  done's  done,"  he  said,  "but  you  shall 
know  what  your  father  thinks  of  you.  You're  a 
bad  woman  and  a  liar,  and  what's  left  o'  sinfulness 
don't  amount  to  much.  The  first's  too  bad  to  cure, 
but  I  'ad  a  way  of  teachin'  you  to  tell  the  truth, 
and,  by  God !  I'll  do  it  now,  if  you  were  twice  your 
age." 

He  took  her  by  the  shoulders  and  showed  her 
the  door. 

"Go  into  the  kitchen,"  he  said  savagely. 

For  one  second  she  looked  at  him  over  her 
shoulder.  Then  she  turned  and  went  slowly  into 
the  kitchen;  it  was  no  good.  She  couldn't  ex- 
plain. 

Mr.  Shine  turned  round  to  his  wife.  "Wait  for 
me,"  he  said,  and  turned  to  the  door.  Gladys 
made  a  sudden  movement. 

"Father,"  she  cried,  "what  are  you  going  to  do?" 

He  pushed  her  aside. 

"What  has  this  to  do  with  you  ?"  he  said. 

He  stopped  for  a  moment  in  the  hall.  Then 

58 


SEQUITUR 

they  heard  his  heavy  footsteps  going  into  the 
kitchen.  Gladys  didn't  care  to  look  at  her  mother; 
she  went  across  and  sat  on  the  sofa,  her  knuckles 
showing  white  on  her  clenched  hands. 

And  all  at  once  she  heard  what  she  dreaded  to 
hear — the  dull,  vicious  thud  of  a  stick  on  human 
flesh. 

Gladys  stared  with  wide  eyes  out  of  the  window. 
It  was  too  dreadful;  surely  her  father  was  wrong. 
The  thing  was  too  big  to  be  dealt  with  like  this. 
It  seemed  bathos  that  Molly  should  be  beaten  for 
ruining  her  body  and  soul.  Gladys  gave  a  quick 
look  at  her  mother.  Mrs.  Shine  was  sitting  at  the 
table,  her  hands  clasped  together.  The  younger 
daughter  almost  thought  she  could  see  a  look  of 
satisfaction  in  her  eyes.  If  so,  it  was  the  fierce 
satisfaction  that  the  Inquisitors  felt  at  the  purging 
of  a  soul. 

The  dreadful  sounds  from  the  kitchen  seemed 
endless.  Just  .the  dull  thuds  of  the  stick — nothing 
else.  Molly  had  always  been  like  that,  Gladys 
thought  to  herself. 

Would  he  never  stop? 

Suddenly  there  came  a  long  wail  of  pain  and 
almost  immediately  the  blows  ceased. 

Gladys  shifted  uneasily  on  the  sofa.  Her  mother 
had  not  moved.  They  could  hear  Mr.  Shine  com- 
ing back. 

He  came  into  the  room  slowly,  and  jerked  his 
head  toward  the  girl  on  the  sofa. 

"Get  out,  Gladys!"  he  said.  She  went  out 
with  a  last  glance  at  the  still  motionless  figure  of 

59 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

her  mother.  Samuel  Shine  went  up  to  the  mantel- 
piece and  brought  his  hand  down  upon  it  heavily. 

"My  God,  Em  I"  he  said.     "My  God  1" 

He  was  quite  sober  now. 

The  mother  said  nothing.     He  gave  a  dry  sob. 

"I'd  never  'ave  believed  it  of  Moll,"  he  said, 
"never.  She  were  always  my  favorite." 

Perhaps  if  Molly  had  seen  him  then  she  would 
have  attempted  the  impossible,  told  him  everything, 
and  trusted  in  a  good  Providence  that  he  should 
believe  her.  But  Molly  was  sitting,  dry-eyed,  on 
her  bed  near  the  little  window,  wondering  with  that 
quaint  mind  of  hers  whether  she  was  supposed  to 
be  any  better  for  the  bruises  on  her  back. 

Mrs.  Shine  answered  nothing  to  her  husband's 
•words,  but  she  rose  and  walked  over  to  the  window. 
Suddenly  she  turned. 

"She's  dead  to  me,"  she  said.  "The  wages  of 
sin  is  death,  and  dead  she  is." 

The  man  shrugged  his  shoulders.  If  ever  he 
had  needed  his  wife  it  was  at  this  moment,  but 
that  she  should  fail  him  was  only  to  be  expected. 
He  sat  down  rather  heavily  in  the  Windsor  chair 
that  was  especially  his  seat;  in  this  chair  he  had 
held  Molly  on  his  knee.  He  remembered,  in  hap- 
pier days,  he  had  made  her  a  doll's  house — a 
splendid  doll's  house  it  was.  He  used  to  play  with 
it,  for  her  amusement  in  this  chair.  He  sat  there 
now,  far  into  the  night.  He  did  not  even  notice 
when  his  wife  went  out  of  the  room. 

When  Gladys  went  upstairs  Molly  was  in  bed; 
60 


NON    SEQUITUR 

propped  up  on  one  arm  she  was  looking  out  of  the 
little  window  over  rows  of  chimney-pots  and  tele- 
graph wires  and  smoke,  all  toned  into  one  weird 
picture  by  the  darkness  of  the  night  above  and  the 
lights  in  the  streets  below. 

The  younger  sister  began  slowly  to  undress. 
There  was  a  gulf  fixed  between  the  two  now,  she 
thought.  This  thing  that  had  happened  had  made 
them  strangers.  Curiously  enough,  she  felt  shy  of 
speaking  to  Molly.  But  as  she  was  getting  into 
bed  she  wondered  that  her  sister  should  not  move, 
but  looked  steadily  out  over  the  roof-tops. 

"What  are  you  looking  at,  Molly?"  she  said. 

"Piccadilly,"  said  Molly. 

Gladys  stared  at  her.  She  never  had  understood 
her  sister.  She  got  slowly  into  bed,  and  was  about 
to  blow  out  the  candle. 

"Is  that  where  he  lives?"  she  asked  suddenly, 
with  a  quaint  note  of  awe. 

Molly  turned  and  looked  at  her;  she  saw  the 
worldly  little  face,  the  over-wise  eyes,  the  thin 
lips.  She  sighed. 

"Yes,"  she  said;  "that's  where  he  lives," 

The  candle  went  out. 


61 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   DUKE'S   CREED 

LADY  OCTAVIA  sailed  into  the  study  at  Wynning- 
hame  House  with  a  light  in  her  eyes  that  heralded 
the  imminent  organization  of  someone.  Behind 
her  came  her  daughter,  Mary  Blake,  a  slim  girl  of 
nineteen,  with  a  wealth  of  very  fair  hair  and  a 
fresh,  sweet  face,  which  her  ultra-fashionable 
clothes  were  unable  to  spoil.  It  is  fortunate  that 
mothers  cannot  have  the  molding  of  their  daughters' 
faces  as  well  as  their  figures. 

Henry  had  a  large  chart  of  the  Pacific  Ocean 
spread  out  on  the  table,  and  was  poring  over  it 
while  Peter  Graine  stood  on  the  hearthrug  looking 
extremely  superior.  Lady  Octavia  began  to  take 
off  her  gloves  at  once. 

"Old  Edgeware's  nephew  proposed  to  Mary  yes- 
terday afternoon,"  she  said.  "Of  course  I  refused 
him." 

"Why?"  the  Duke  asked  without  looking  up. 

"Why?"  echoed  his  sister.  "My  dear  Henry, 
he  is  twenty-seven  and  already  has  gout;  and  his 
mother  says  he  snores,  but  then  she  hates  the  idea 
of  his  marrying  anybody." 

Peter  Graine  laughed  as  Mary  went  over  to  him. 

"Mother  loves  to  arrange  everything,"  she  said; 
"but  of  course  I  shall  marry  whom  I  please  in  the 
end." 

"Of  course,"  said  the  Duke  gravely. 
62 


THE    DUKE'S    CREED 

Lady  Octavia  sighed. 

"I  believe  girls  do  now,"  she  said.  "You  have 
not  asked  me  to  sit  down,  Henry." 

"Do  I  have  to  ask?" 

"No,"  she  said,  seating  herself  by  the  table; 
"but  it  would  sound  rather  well.  Henry,"  she 
added,  "I  read  the  report  of  the  Conference  in  the 
Times.  How  could  you?  Why  did  you  let  him, 
Peter?" 

"Well,"  said  the  Professor,  "for  one  thing  I 
didn't  know  he  was  going  to;  and  in  the  second 
place " 

The  Duke  cut  in. 

"It  would  not  have  made  any  difference,"  he 
said.  "I  believe  in  every  man's  right  to  tilt  at  his 
own  windmills." 

"But  the  wings  always  hit  his  relations,"  said 
Octavia.  She  sighed.  "Never  mind,"  she  added; 
"we  are  used  to  it.  I  met  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine  in 
Bond  Street.  He  said  at  once,  'I  see  Wynning- 
hame  has  made  a  fool  of  himself  again.' '  She 
looked  at  her  wrist,  then  leaned  over  and  touched  a 
bell  on  the  desk.  "It  is  half-past  four,"  she  said. 
"I  accept  your  offer  of  tea,  Henry,  in  the  spirit  in 
which  it  should  have  been  made." 

"I'm  sorry,  Octavia,"  said  the  Duke;  then,  as  a 
servant  appeared:  "Tea,  please." 

"And  toast,"  added  Octavia.  "Tea  time,"  she 
went  on,  as  the  man  left  the  room,  "is  the  only 
possible  time  for  toast.  At  breakfast  it  is  too 
brisk  a  food.  I  hate  anything  that  crackles  for 
breakfast.  It  should  be  a  soft  and  gloomy  meal." 

63 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Peter  Graine  laughed. 

"Since  you  have  come  in,  Octavia,"  he  said,  "no 
one  else  has  spoken  save  in  monosyllables.  I  say 
it  in  admiration.  You  are  a  mistress  of  trivialities." 

"If  you  or  Henry  have  anything  to  say,"  an- 
swered Lady  Octavia  imperturbably,  "say  it." 

"Personally,"  said  the  Duke  with  a  shade  of 
irony  in  his  voice,  "I  have  nothing  to  say  at  all." 

"Well,  Henry,"  Octavia  went  on,  "I  admit  that 
you  are  a  clever  man  and  that  I  am  not  a  clever 
woman.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  business  propo- 
sition I  should  be  the  one  that  would  appeal  to 
the  investor.  You  think  a  great  deal,  Henry,  and 
it  is  possible  that  one  day  you  will  give  birth  to  an 
idea  of  importance,  though  personally  I  am  inclined 
to  think  your  life  will  be  one  long  miscarriage.  I 
suppose  I  am  being  coarse.  You  had  better  not 
listen,  Mary." 

"I  never  do,  mother,"  said  the  girl  simply. 

Peter  Graine  gave  a  roar  of  laughter. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Octavia,"  he  said,  "but 
that  was  really  funny." 

"I  suppose  it  was,"  admitted  Octavia;  "one 
brings  up  one's  children  and  then  they  proceed  to 
take  one  down." 

"I  never  meant "  began  Mary,  but  Octavia 

cut  in. 

"Then  you  should  have,"  she  said;  "never  admit 
that  you  have  been  witty  unawares.  Here  is  the 
tea!  Henry,  you  look  tired  of  me.  Are  you?" 

"My  dear  Octavia,  is  that  a  polite  question 
to  ask?" 

64 


THE   DUKE'S    CREED 

"Then  you  are — well,  it  won't  make  any  differ- 
ence." She  poured  out  some  tea  and  selected  a 
piece  of  toast.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,"  she  went  on, 
"I  have  not  come  here  simply  to  drink  your  tea, 
which  is  horrid,  or  to  indulge  in  the  trivialities 
which  tire  you,  Henry." 

The  Duke  smiled. 

"You  have  an  object?"  he  said. 

"I  always  have  an  object,"  answered  his  sister. 
"Do  you  ever  intend  to  marry,  Henry?" 

He  leaned  back  in  his  chair. 

"No,"  he  said  at  length. 

"I  do  not  believe  you  ever  have  any  temptations, 
do  you?" 

"Oh,  yes.  There  are  lots  of  people  I  should 
like  to  murder." 

"Is  it  necessary  to  be  personal?" 

"You  are  quite  safe,  Octavia." 

She  laughed. 

"Why  don't  you  wish  to  marry,  Henry?"  she 
asked.  "Have  you  never  been  in  love?" 

"All  my  life,"  he  said,  "with  the  world  and 
everything  that  is  in  it." 

She  snapped  her  fingers. 

"You  cannot  marry  a  syndicate  like  that,"  she 
said.  "It  is  one  of  my  ambitions  to  be  an  aunt." 

"Henry  is  a  fish,  Octavia,"  said  the  Professor 
sadly. 

"We  have  had  this  out  so  many  times,"  said  the 
Duke;  "you  think  it  is  my  duty  to  marry.  I  be- 
lieve you  think  it  is  waste  of  a  Duchess.  Well, 
Octavia,  women  do  not  attract  me  in  that  way. 

65 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The — er — follies  of  a  young  man" — he  looked  at 
Mary  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  but  she  was 
placidly  sipping  her  tea — "the  follies  of  a  young 
man,"  he  went  on,  "I  have  never  experienced.  I 
have  never  wished  to  experience  them.  What  is 
marriage  but  an  old  man's  folly?" 

"You  don't  mean  that,  Uncle  Henry,"  said  Mary. 

"Perhaps  not,  my  dear,"  he  said.  "But  for  me 
to  marry  would  be  a  crime.  People  tell  me  that  the 
capacity  for  loving  a  woman  is  the  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world.  Well,  I  have  missed  it." 

Octavia  sighed. 

"You  are  a  great  disappointment,  Henry,"  she 
said. 

"I  should  be  a  greater  disappointment  to  my 
wife." 

"Isn't  every  husband?"  cried  Octavia. 

"I  love  to  hear  people  talking  about  marriage," 
said  Mary  from  her  corner.  "Nobody  has  a  good 
word  to  say  for  it;  but  the  world  goes  on  all  the 
same." 

"At  your  age,"  said  her  mother,  "one  always 
marries  an  angel." 

"Later,"  added  the  Professor,  "one  discovers 
that  it  is  the  one  with  the  flaming  sword." 

"How  do  you  know?"  said  Mary.  "You  have 
never  been  married." 

"I  never  deserved  it,"  said  Peter  ambiguously. 

"At  least,"  said  the  Duke  slowly,  demolishing 
in  a  sentence  the  Professor's  hastily  thrown-up 
defenses,  "at  least  no  woman  has  ever  suffered  on 
my  account." 

66 


THE   DUKE'S    CREED 

"How  do  you  know?"  cried  Mary  again.  Even 
at  nineteen  one  has  had  one's  affairs. 

"Women  only  suffer  about  the  things  that  inter- 
est them,"  he  said.  "I  am  uninteresting." 

Octavia  helped  herself  to  some  more  tea. 

"Very  few  nice  men,"  she  said,  "realize  how 
many  girls  have  lain  awake  all  night  on  their  ac- 
count. All  nice  women  realize  that  men  are  having 
insomnia  over  them.  It  is  one  of  the  differences 
between  the  sexes.  Peter  imagines  every  woman 
whose  supper  he  pays  for  is  in  love  with  him.  But 
then,  of  course,  he  is  not  a  nice  man." 

"You  say  that,  Octavia,"  said  the  Professor, 
"because  I  have  never  made  love  to  you." 

"It  appears,"  rejoined  Octavia,  smiling  at  him 
blandly,  "that  he  is  vulgar  as  well." 

"I  am  annihilated,"  said  Peter,  "but  I  have  had 
a  very  happy  life." 

"In  that  case,"  said  Lady  Octavia,  "you  need  no 
excuses." 

"Think  so?"  broke  in  the  Duke.  "That  is  not 
my  opinion." 

The  Professor  snorted. 

"Henry  has  one  vice  at  least,"  he  said.  "He 
talks  like  a  clergyman." 

"As  a  class,  Peter,"  the  Duke  said,  "I  should  say 
that  clergymen  speak  more  sense  in  a  year  than 
any  other  profession.  They  are  severely  handi- 
capped by  being  so  plainly  labeled.  If  scientists 
had  to  wear  their  collars  the  wrong  way  round, 
science  would  be  even  more  neglected  than  it  is." 

67 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Anyway,"    said    the    Professor,    "I    refuse    to 
justify  my  peccadilloes." 

"We  haven't  the  time,"  said  Henry  dryly. 

"Oh,  come,"  cried  Octavia;  "don't  snap  at  one 
another.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  Henry  does 
not  know  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong. 
He  imagines  because  his  own  pet  sins  are  peculiar 
that  they  are  not  sins.  He  pauperizes  the  people 
on  his  estates,  and  makes  all  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages jealous.  That  is  causing  strife,  and  is  there- 
fore a  sin.  His  indiscriminate  charity  is  exactly  the 
same  as  Peter's  indiscriminate  love-making — lack  of 
self-control.  Love  should  be  organized,  like  every- 
thing else.  If  it  oughtn't  to  be,  what  is  marriage 
for?  Personally,  I  want  you  to  marry,  Henry.  I 
think  it  might  save  you.  And  what  does  it  matter 
to  me  whether  Gerald  succeeds  to  the  title  or  not? 
Only  I  want  to  know  whether  there  is  any  likelihood 
of  your  marrying.  You  are  thirty-eight,  and  should 
be  able  to  tell.  If  Gerald  is  going  to  be  Duke  of 
Wynninghame  he  will  have  to  be  carefully  watched. 
Do  you  think  the  Marquis  of  Cartley  would  have 
been  allowed  to  marry  his  wife  if  they  had  known 
he  was  going  to  succeed  to  the  title  ?  Certainly  not. 
Even  now,  after  seven  years'  training,  her  skirts 
hang  down  farther  at  the  back  than  in  front." 

"You  may  take  it  as  official,"  said  the  Duke 
smiling,  "that  Gerald  will  one  day  possess  Wynning- 
hame House." 

Octavia  rose. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "you  are  peculiar,  Henry. 
Somehow,  after  a  man  has  returned  from  Paris,  one 

68 


THE   DUKE'S    CREED 

feels  one  must  inquire  after  the  state  of  his  heart; 
I  have  done  my  duty." 

She  went  over  to  the  door,  where  Peter  joined 
her.  Mary  came  across  to  the  Duke. 

"Uncle  Henry,"  she  said,  "what  is  your  creed?" 

"My  creed?"  he  repeated. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  recite  the  Prayer  Book,  but 
you  are  one  of  the  few  men  I  know  who  have  a 
creed,  and  I  should  like  to  hear  it." 

The  Duke's  lips  curved  into  a  whimsical  smile. 

"If  I  have  a  creed,"  he  said,  "it  is  to  do  what 
one  thinks  right  at  the  moment  and  correct  one's 
mistakes  as  they  occur." 

"Is  that  all?" 

"There  is  a  second  half,"  he  said,  "It  is:  'Ignore 
the  opinions  of  your  relations.'  " 

"That  sounds  very  dangerous,"  said  Octavia 
from  the  door. 

Mary  slipped  her  hands  into  her  uncle's. 

"I  think  it  is  a  beautiful  creed,"  she  said. 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  "it  is  the  creed  of  a  prig." 

She  lowered  her  voice. 

"If  ever  I  marry,"  she  said,  "I  hope  it  will  be 
a  prig — with  gray  eyes  and  curly  hair,"  she  added  as 
she  walked  across  to  the  door. 

"Henry,"  cried  Octavia,  "is  this  right,  what  Peter 
is  telling  me  about  your  going  to  the  South  Seas?" 

For  answer  the  Duke  pointed  to  the  map. 

"Well,  really,"  said  his  sister;  "but  you  were 
always  an  obstinate  man.  Come  along,  Mary! 
These  days  in  town  are  too  fatiguing,  but  Mary 
must  have  clothes.  She  has  not  a  thing  to  wear." 

69 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  hadn't  noticed  it,"  said  the  Duke. 

"Pooh!"  said  the  Professor.  "Did  you  ever 
know  the  woman  who  had  got  anything  to  wear?" 

"You  forget,  Peter,"  he  rejoined,  "I  have  not 
mixed  in  your  circles." 

Octavia  smiled. 

"If  Henry  had  been  a  woman,"  she  said,  "he 
would  have  been  called  a  cat." 

The  Duke  looked  at  Peter. 

"That  must  be  the  feminine  of  prig,"  he  said. 

Mary  laughed. 

"I  have  plenty  of  clothes,  Uncle  Prig,"  she  said. 
"You  are  quite  right;  but  mother  thinks  that  though 
marriages  are  made  in  heaven  they  are  made  much 
more  quickly  in  the  season — which  is  just  coming 
on." 

"Really,  that's  quite  smart,"  said  Lady  Octavia. 
"It  must  be,  because  if  I'd  said  it  at  your  age  I 
should  have  been  sent  to  my  room." 

She  went  out,  and  the  Duke  and  Peter  watched 
them  go  down  the  steps  and  into  Piccadilly.  As 
they  turned  back  Peter  stopped. 

"So  no  woman  has  ever  suffered  on  your  account, 
eh,  Henry?"  he  said  suddenly. 

"I  hope  I  may  say  so,"  returned  the  Duke. 

"Bahl"  said  the  Professor,  swinging  open  the  big 
doors.  "Go  and  look  in  the  glass.  You're  just  the 
sort  of  man  women  go  and  pine  away  about." 

But,  of  course,  the  Duke,  who  forgot  everything, 
forgot  to  look  in  the  glass. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MOLLY  DISCOVERS   HERSELF 

SAMUEL  SHINE  found  himself  in  a  very  serious 
dilemma.  His  wife  would  neither  speak  to  Molly 
nor  even  admit  that  she  existed,  except  when  she 
would  turn  suddenly  round  on  her  husband  and 
tell  him  it  was  his  sacred  duty  to  turn  his  daughter 
into  the  streets.  To  the  cabinet-maker,  however, 
who,  amazing  as  it  may  appear,  had  not  been  drunk 
once  since  the  discovery  of  the  letter,  this  course 
seemed  tantamount  to  driving  Molly  even  more 
firmly  on  to  the  rocks  than  she  was  already.  Be- 
sides, he  could  not  bring  himself  to  throw  a  child 
of  his  out  of  the  house,  whatever  she  had  done. 
Samuel  Shine  was  one  of  those  queer  mixtures  of 
brutality  and  sentiment  so  often  found  in  his  class 
of  life. 

To  all  of  this  his  wife  would  merely  raise  her 
eyebrows  and  remark  that  it  wasn't  'ardly  fair  to 
Gladys.  And  so,  hour  by  hour,  the  unfortunate 
affair  was  only  serving  to  make  wider  and  wider  the 
breach  between  the  two.  Every  night  would  be 
made  hideous  in  the  man's  ears  by  the  reiteration 
of  those  parts  of  the  Bible  dealing  with  adultery, 
or  any  phrases  which  could  possibly  be  twisted  into 
showing  the  likelihood  of  eternal  damnation  for 
wrong-doers.  Mrs.  Shine  actually  and  vividly  be- 
lieved that  her  daughter's  body  would  survive  its 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

earthly  death  in  order  that  it  might  be  served  up  in 
flames  before  God,  like  a  sort  of  rum  omelette. 
Her  husband,  whose  intellect  was  not  overdevel- 
oped, did  not  worry  about  her  future  existence,  a 
subject  on  which  he  was  always  sufficiently  hazy,  but 
endeavored,  struggling  beneath  an  avalanche  of 
texts,  to  concentrate  his  mind  upon  the  immediate 
position. 

Worst  of  all,  the  affair  had  become  known  to  the 
neighbors.  Mrs.  Shine,  with  yet  another  cross 
piled  on  her  already  overburdened  shoulders,  could 
not  refrain  from  drawing  attention  to  her  load, 
and  now  almost  the  whole  of  Ball  Street  knew,  dis- 
cussed, and,  as  is  the  curious  habit  of  people,  re- 
joiced over  the  tragedy  at  Number  Three.  Gladys, 
who,  for  all  her  worldly  wisdom,  was  but  a  child, 
regarded  the  whole  affair  as  an  extra  excitement  in 
a  rather  dull  world,  and  held  her  head  even  higher 
than  usual  on  her  way  to  the  dingy  little  room  in 
the  City,  where  she  was  wrestling  with  the  mysteries 
of  "short'and"  and  "commerce."  She  seemed  to 
herself  a  more  important  personage  than  ever. 
Whereby  you  see  Gladys  had  the  soul  of  a  press- 
photographer. 

Meanwhile,  Molly  had  her  meals  in  the  kitchen. 
Except  for  the  fact  that  she  felt  very  sorry  for  her 
father,  her  fresh  young  mind,  as  soon  as  the  bruises 
on  her  back  ceased  to  worry  her,  had  dived  deep 
into  the  tragedy  and  found  the  face  of  Comedy  grin- 
ning at  her  from  the  bottom.  When  the  Truth,  if 
told,  would  only  sound  like  a  very  inadequate  lie, 
what  is  one  to  do?  "Tell  the  Truth,"  cries  the 

72 


MOLLY   DISCOVERS    HERSELF 

Christian  philosopher,  "and  shame  the  Devill" 
But  Molly,  like  everyone  else  in  this  wicked  world, 
had  a  preference  for  being  considered  a  knave 
rather  than  a  fool,  and  if  she  were  to  go  to  her 
father  and  tell  him  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  was 
sending  her  two  pounds  a  week  from  his  mansion 
in  order  that  she  might  buy  books  like  "The  Path 
of  Patricia,"  and  that  he  wasn't  a  man  at  all  but  a 
dream-monger,  she  could  see  that  he  would  be  per- 
fectly justified  in  giving  her  another  beating.  What 
is  more,  she  knew  he  would  do  so,  and  that 
settled  it.  So  Molly  did  the  next  best  thing,  and 
prayed  to  God  to  solve  the  problem.  Her  faith 
being  simple  and  sure,  she  had  no  doubt  that  He 
would  do  it,  and  in  the  meantime  she  didn't  see 
why  He  should  expect  her  to  be  miserable  about  an 
affair  which  she  had  placed  unreservedly  in  such 
safe  hands. 

There  came  an  afternoon  when  a  knock  at  the 
door  (the  bell  had  been  out  of  order  for  two  years) 
was  followed  by  the  entrance  of  a  young  clergyman 
of  so  athletic  and  vigorous  a  build  that  the  little 
skylight  seemed  suddenly  abashed,  and  the  mere 
entrance  of  this  giant  plunged  the  passage  into 
Stygian  darkness.  Molly  recognized  his  voice  as 
that  of  the  curate  of  the  church  which  she  had 
attended  ever  since  she  was  five,  and  for  which  her 
mother's  unfortunate  temperament  had  given  her 
an  equally  unfortunate  contempt.  But  the  curate, 
the  Rev.  Christopher  Warden,  she  liked  in  so  far  as 
she  knew  him,  which  was  very  little.  What  prob- 
ably appealed  to  Molly  was  that  he  was  a  fervent 

73 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

idealist,  to  whom  the  ugliness  of  the  world  was  a 
real  pain  and  its  beauty  a  genuine  delight.  His 
belief  in  Divinity  sprang  from  his  belief  in  Hu- 
manity; not  vice  versa,  which  is  such  a  common 
mistake.  He  felt  certain  the  man  who  can  imagine 
"Excelsior"  can  ultimately  reach  Excelsior,  and  this 
belief  led  him  logically  to  the  conviction  that 
wherever  and  whenever  that  end  was  reached  there 
would  be  found  God;  at  the  same  time  he  prided 
himself  on  being  a  practical  man  of  the  world. 

Molly  heard  his  deep  voice  outside  the  sitting- 
room,  saying,  "Can  I  come  in?"  and  after  that  she 
heard  no  more.  But  an  intuition  told  her  that  she 
was  the  reason  of  his  visit,  and  that  it  was  the 
saving  of  her  soul  that  was  now  under  discussion. 
She  was  right.  After  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
she  was  sent  for,  and  went  into  the  little  sitting- 
room,  which  had  been  more  or  less  forbidden 
ground  since  that  momentous  Saturday  afternoon. 

The  young  clergyman  rose  as  she  came  in. 

"I  feel  sure,"  he  said  in  his  deep  bass,  "that 
there  must  be  some  explanation  of  this." 

"Who  told  you?"  asked  Molly. 

"My  dear  child,"  he  said,  "I  cannot  help  hear- 
ing what  people  say,  can  I  ?  But  I  need  not  believe 
it." 

He  held  out  his  hand  and  she  took  it. 

"That  is  very  good  of  you,"  she  said. 

Her  mother  shrugged  her  shoulders.  She  saw 
no  use  in  these  honeyed  words. 

"Won't  you  tell  us  the  truth?"  said  the  curate 
gently. 

74 


MOLLY   DISCOVERS    HERSELF 

Molly  looked  at  him  and  at  her  father.  It  was 
now  or  never.  Well,  she  thought  to  herself,  she 
would  tell  them.  It  would  be  a  big  test,  anyway. 
She  suddenly  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  table. 

"Ever  hear  of  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  ?"  she 
asked. 

The  clergyman  stared  at  her. 

"Of  course,"  he  said. 

"Well,"  she  went  on,  "he's  the  man  that's  been 
sending  me  the  money." 

She  became  aware  that  they  were  all  looking  at 
her  incredulously;  she  began  to  take  a  delight  in 
adding  improbability  to  improbability. 

"I  met  him  at  the  Zoo,"  she  said,  "for  about 
twenty  minutes,  and  had  tea  with  him.  He  gave 
me  a  splendid  tea,  and  sent  me  two  pounds  a  week 
afterward  to  buy  books  with."  She  stopped  with 
a  little  gasp  and  closed  her  mouth  firmly.  That 
was  all  she  was  going  to  tell  them;  they  should 
never  know  of  the  nights  she  had  spent  trying  to 
re-create  the  picture  of  her  dream-monger  as  he  dis- 
appeared around  the  corner  into  the  Snake  House, 
his  hat  in  his  hand  and  his  hair  blowing  in  the  wind. 

She  became  aware  of  her  mother's  monotonous 
whine.  "A  lie,"  she  was  saying,  "is  an  abomination 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  I" 

The  slow  voice  of  the  clergyman  broke  in  on 
her. 

"You  cannot  expect  us  to  believe  that,"  he  said. 

"I  don't,"  answered  Molly. 

"Then  what  was  the  use?"  asked  her  father,  a 
little  wearily. 

75 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"You  asked  me  to  tell  the  truth,"  she  said.  "I 
can't  help  it  if  you  don't  believe  it." 

Her  mother  regarded  her  husband  sternly. 

"I  told  you  it  weren't  no  good  letting  her  spend 
her  time  reading  fairy  tales  an'  trash,"  she  said; 
"now  you  see  ...  she'd  be  a  liar  even  if  she 
weren't  worse." 

After  which  statement,  which  appeared  in  some 
mysterious  way  to  comfort  her  exceedingly,  Mrs. 
Shine  sat  back  in  her  chair  and  linked  her  hands, 
as  much  as  to  say,  "That  finishes  it  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned."  Perhaps  she  felt  that  as  Molly  would 
have  been  a  constitutional  liar  anyway,  this  other 
catastrophe  was  not  of  such  great  importance. 
With  souls,  as  in  other  matters,  she  believed  in 
cutting  her  losses. 

The  clergyman  rose,  not  without  dignity,  and 
turning  his  back  upon  the  occupants  of  the  room, 
stared  sorrowfully  out  of  the  window.  He  was  not 
a  man  of  great  imagination,  and  Molly's  story  was 
too  much  for  him.  He  believed  it  to  be  a  clergy- 
man's duty  to  be  a  man  of  the  world,  and  perhaps 
this  belief  led  him  into  a  certain  conventionality  of 
outlook  that  left  him  wholly  unprepared  for  the 
extraordinary  or  even  the  whimsical.  It  is  the 
danger  of  living  in  the  world  that  as  we  grow  older 
we  find  more  difficulty  in  getting  out  of  it,  even  for 
a  moment.  That  is  why  children  are  sometimes 
inexplicable;  up  to  the  age  of  seven  we  are  per- 
mitted to  shake  hands  with  the  angels.  Afterward, 
only  at  a  price — unless,  of  course,  one  is  a  member 
of  the  Peerage. 

76 


MOLLY   DISCOVERS    HERSELF 

As  the  curate  looked  out  of  the  window  he  was 
wondering  what  he  should  say  to  Molly.  He  de- 
cided that  her  whole  story  was  a  fabrication  in  the 
hope  that,  by  some  extraordinary  chance,  they  might 
be  foolish  enough  to  believe  her.  Yet  it  was  in  the 
nature  of  the  man  to  be  kind,  and  when  he  turned 
round  his  eyes  held  very  little  of  condemnation  in 
them,  but  perhaps  rather  too  much  pity. 

"Do  not  think,"  he  said  to  Molly,  "that  I  do 
not  appreciate  your  loyalty  to  this  man — whoever 
he  is.  I  do.  But  it  is  a  mistaken  loyalty.  In 
these  circumstances  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  to 
believe  it  is  the  man  who  must  take  the  blame  and," 
he  brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table,  "such  share 
of  the  consequences  as  he  can  be  made  to  bear. 
You  have  done  wrong.  The  least  you  can  do  is  to 
take  other  people's  advice  as  to  how  to  pick  up  the 
pieces." 

He  paused. 

"Such  pieces  as  can  be  picked  up,"  he  added,  a 
little  bitterly. 

Molly,  who  had  risen  when  the  clergyman  began 
to  speak,  plumped  suddenly  down  into  the  black, 
shiny  chair  by  the  fire.  So  they  didn't  believe  a 
single  word  of  it!  The  thought  made  her  feel 
suddenly  rebellious.  It  had  cost  her  a  little  to  tell 
them  what  she  had  told  them,  and  they  thought 
apparently  that  she  had  simply  composed  the  story 
as  she  went  along.  Well,  she  would  tell  them  no 
more. 

"I  can't  see  any  pieces  to  pick  up,"  she  said. 

The  clergyman  regarded  her  sternly. 

77 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Do  you  still  persist  that  the  man  is  the  Duke 
of  Wynninghame  ?"  he  asked. 

She  nodded. 

The  Rev.  Christopher  Warden  was  silent.  He 
stole  a  look  at  her,  and  saw  that  she  was  beautiful. 
After  all,  it  was  possible  that  the  Duke  had  seen  her 
and  desired  her;  and  the  fact  that  so  great  a  man 
had  stooped  so  far — the  curate's  lips  curled  in  irony 
at  his  own  thoughts — might  explain  the  fall  of  a 
good  girl  like  Molly.  After  all,  the  Peerage  was 
human.  He  remembered  the  old  Earl  of  Cole- 
borough,  a  sporting  gentleman  of  eighty-seven,  who 
had  come  down  in  a  gray  top-hat  to  open  the  new 
Sunday  school  buildings,  and  who,  when  pressed  for 
a  speech,  had  blown  his  nose  violently  and  said, 
"Deuced  fine  lot  of  women  about  here."  Yes,  even 
the  Peerage  was  human,  and  a  pretty  girl  is  a  pretty 
girl  and  has  no  class.  The  curate  decided  to  drop 
a  bomb  shell. 

"Very  well,"  he  said  suddenly.  "You  and  I  will 
call  upon  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  1" 

Molly  jumped  up. 

"No!"  she  cried.  "Crikes— no!"  Her  vehe- 
mence surprised  even  herself.  It  seemed  almost 
sacrilege  to  transpose  this  sordid  business  into  the 
magician's  palace.  Her  mother,  putting  the  obvi- 
ous construction  on  the  refusal,  smiled  sardonically 
at  her  husband,  who,  truth  to  tell,  was  weary  of  the 
whole  affair. 

"What  would  be  the  use,  anyway,"  he  said. 

"Use!"  shouted  the  clergyman.  "Why  should 
the  man  who  has  done  this  thing  go  on  his  way  un- 

78 


MOLLY   DISCOVERS    HERSELF 

challenged?  It  is  wrong  that  he  should  not  be 
faced  with  his  own  sin — definitely  wrong." 

"  'E  ain't  the  man,"  put  in  Mrs.  Shine,  a  world 
of  scorn  in  her  tone.  "A  duke?  If  'e  were,  don't 
you  think  we'd  'ave  'card  of  it  long  since?" 

And,  indeed,  Mrs.  Shine  herself  thought  vaguely 
that,  in  all  probability,  hell  fire  was  kept  at  a  lower 
temperature  for  anyone  above  the  rank  of  an  Hon- 
orable. 

Molly,  staring  into  the  glass  on  the  mantelpiece, 
could  see  all  three  of  them  looking  at  her.  What  a 
puzzle  it  all  was!  She  had  told  them  the  truth, 
and  they  had  not  even  tried  to  believe  her.  Molly 
herself  admitted  that  the  affair  was  fantastic,  but  it 
had  happened,  and,  after  all,  we  take  for  granted  a 
thousand  miracles  in  our  daily  life.  At  that  mo- 
ment the  problem  appeared  to  her  insoluble. 

Then  slowly  her  mind  reverted  to  the  magician 
who  had  spun  this  web.  If  a  dream-monger  sup- 
plied dreams  that  went  bad,  she  thought,  quaintly, 
the  proper  course  must  be  to  take  them  back. 
Dared  she?  Dared  she  go  to  that  big  house  and 
ask  him  what  to  do  when  you  hang  on  to  a  dream 
and  it  skids?  She  felt  she  was  losing  faith  in  fairy 
tales,  and,  if  she  once  lost  faith,  she  knew  that  the 
whole  dreadful  affair,  with  all  its  drabness,  would 
overwhelm  her  and  bring  her  tumbling  down  far, 
far  lower  than  the  angels.  Her  father's  weariness, 
her  mother's  bitterness,  the  clergyman's  stern  kind- 
ness, were  all  insidiously  folding  themselves  round 
her  like  the  tentacles  of  an  octopus,  and  dragging 
her  remorselessly  away,  till  the  moment  would  come 

79 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

when  she  would  give  a  last  desperate  clutch  at  her 
star,  miss  it,  and  go  plunging  down,  down  .  .  . 
to  a  world  she  had  never  been  able  to  understand, 
which  would  inevitably  crush  her — the  world  of 
every  day. 

And  as  she  stood  there  with  all  these  thoughts 
tumbling  through  her  mind  like  clowns  at  a  circus, 
those  three  apostles  of  the  ordinary,  blessed  in  their 
creed,  stood  watching  her.  Rebels  must  be  brought 
into  line ;  Benvenuto  Cellini  would  rightly  have  been 
given  six  months  in  Bermondsey  to-day;  and  the 
position  of  the  three  judges  is  unassailable. 

Still,  there  are  yet  places  in  the  world  for  Dresden 
Shepherdesses,  and  it  is  wiser  to  try  to  find  their 
niche  than  to  try  to  fit  them  with  overalls. 

But  whoever  pulls  the  strings  that  guide  us 
through  the  comedies  and  tragedies  of  our  world 
got  suddenly  to  work,  and  Molly,  just  as  the  situa- 
tion was  about  to  sweep  her  out  of  her  depth  and 
drown  her,  was  given  a  clear  vision  of  the  dream- 
monger's  dark  gray  eyes  and  his  silver-brown  hair, 
and  with  a  little  leap  of  her  heart  (whether  of  joy 
or  surprise,  who  can  tell?)  realized  that  she  loved 
him,  not  for  his  dreams,  but  for  himself. 

And  with  this  realization  came  the  feeling  that 
she  must  see  him  again,  even  if  it  meant  bearding 
him  in  his  palace,  attended  by  a  clergyman  and 
her  very  mundane  father. 

So  she  turned  quite  calmly  to  her  inquisitors  and 
said: 

"All  right!     I'll  go  to  him  any  time  you  like." 

But  with  her  head  full  of  this  great  new  thought, 

80 


MOLLY   DISCOVERS    HERSELF 

her  whole  being  deluged  with  bitter  sweet  emotions, 
and  everything  else  in  the  world  crowded  out  to 
make  room  for  the  only  thing  that  mattered,  she 
could  not  wait  to  hear  what  any  of  them  had  to  say, 
and  rushed  precipitately  out  of  the  door  up  to  her 
bedroom. 

There  she  sat  on  her  bed  and  stared  before  her. 
Then  she  began  to  rock  slowly  to  and  fro,  moaning 
in  a  sort  of  monotone,  "I  love  him — oh,  I  love 
himl"  till  at  last  the  tears  rushed  to  her  eyes,  and 
she  flung  herself  down  by  the  bedside. 

God  must  hear  some  curious  prayers  sent  flying 
helter-skelter  up  to  His  seat  from  a  puzzled  world, 
and  perhaps  in  heaven  it  was  not  considered  comic 
when  Molly  whispered  brokenly  into  her  torn  coun- 
terpane : 

"Oh,  God  .  .  .  oh,  God,  let  me  wake  up 
and  find  he  is  a  clerk !" 


81 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE    CHURCH    MILITANT 

THE  Duke  of  Wynninghame  was  feeding  his  lizard. 
It  was  a  new  lizard,  and  the  Duke  had  some  quite 
impossible  theory  regarding  the  formation  of  its 
head.  He  had  not  been  in  the  least  in  the  mood  to 
see  his  solicitor,  who  always  annoyed  him  by  his 
severe  business  attitude  and  the  irritating  way  in 
which  he  gloried  in  his  own  efficiency.  However, 
the  interview,  dealing  with  the  necessary  financial 
arrangements  for  the  proposed  expedition  to  what 
was  now  generally  designated  in  the  family  as  Toad 
Island,  was  over,  and  the  solicitor  had  gone  on  his 
way  with  a  curt  remark  to  the  effect  that  he  had  a 
divorce  at  eleven. 

The  Duke  looked  up  from  the  little  zinc  cage 
which  he  was  vaguely  stuffing  with  ants'  eggs  and 
regarded  Peter  Graine,  who  was  in  his  usual  posi- 
tion of  authority  on  the  hearth-rug,  with  a  slight 
frown. 

"I  cannot  really  like  a  man  who  says  he  has  a 
divorce  at  eleven,  Peter,"  he  said.  "It  seems  so 
crude." 

Then  his  habitual  good  nature  asserted  itself. 

"But  I  hope  it  is  a  lucrative  divorce,"  he  added, 
peering  in  at  the  lizard,  which,  like  the  rest  of  his 
acquaintances,  took  no  notice  of  him  whatever. 

82 


THE    CHURCH    MILITANT 

"There  is  no  doubt,"  he  said,  "that  the  cerebel- 
lum is  overdeveloped." 

The  Professor  laughed. 

"If  you  pile  any  more  of  that  stuff  in,  the  stomach 
will  be  overdeveloped,  too,"  he  said. 

Peter  Graine  was  staying  at  Wynninghame 
House,  directing  the  arrangements  for  the  expedi- 
tion, a  task  for  which  the  Duke  was  wholly  incompe- 
tent. The  Professor  had  become  quite  enthusiastic 
about  the  voyage,  not,  it  must  be  confessed,  be- 
cause he  had  any  faith  in  its  object  being  attained, 
but  because,  as  usual  after  his  holiday  in  Paris,  he 
badly  needed  a  change,  and  a  trip  to  the  Pacific  in 
the  Duke's  comfortable  yacht  would  be  a  very 
pleasant  way  of  getting  one. 

Now  he  endeavored,  as  he  had  already  several 
times  endeavored,  out  of  a  sense  of  duty,  to  bring 
Henry  sufficiently  to  earth  to  understand  in  what 
sort  of  directions  his  money  was  being  spent. 

"There  are,"  he  said,  "several  sun-helmets 
coming  up  to-day,  Henry,  for  your  approval." 

The  Duke  made  a  gesture  of  irritation. 

"No,  no,  Peter,"  he  said;  "I  don't  in  the  least 
wish  to  approve  helmets.  That  is  your  affair.  Be- 
sides, I  shall  wear  a  cap." 

"You  cannot  wear  a  cap  in  the  sun." 

"Well,  then,  I  shall  wear  a  cabbage-leaf.  A 
helmet  makes  one  look  like  an  American  staring  at 
the  Sphinx;  I  would  far  rather  be  mistaken  for  a 
tropical  plant  than  for  an  American." 

Peter  smiled. 

"You  needn't  be  afraid,"  he  answered;  "you  are 
83 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

far  too  inefficient  ever  to  be  mistaken  for  anything 
else  than  an  English  Peer." 

"Well,"  said  the  Duke,  "one  should  be  satisfied 
with  that  station  of  life  to  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  call  one." 

"One  invariably  is,"  said  the  Professor  dryly,  "if 
it  includes  fifteen  thousand  a  year  and  seven 
estates." 

"There  seems,  then,  a  fallacy  in  the  story  of  the 
camel  and  the  needle's  eye,"  said  the  Duke,  putting 
the  lizard,  who  was  now  absolutely  panting  with 
indigestion,  on  to  the  table. 

Peter  Graine  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"There  are  fallacies  in  everything  that  is  writ- 
ten," he  said;  "a  thing  is  not  necessarily  great  be- 
cause it  is  inspired.  For  instance,  the  slopes  of 
Parnassus  are  crowded  ten  deep  with  people  on 
whom  Love  has  dropped  his  first  visiting  card; 
but  the  verses  they  write  to  the  little  god  in  re- 
turn  "  He  broke  off.  "One  wonders  Cupid 

doesn't  get  fed  up  with  and  emigrate  to  Saturn." 

"I  think,"  said  the  Duke,  "that  if  the  emotion 
is  great,  the  work  will  be  great;  at  any  rate,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  author  of  the  emotion." 

The  Professor  gave  his  usual  little  snort  of  dis- 
gust. 

"Of  course,  Henry,"  he  said,  "that  is  your  creed. 
Do  what  you  think  best  at  the  moment,  and  if  the 
world  puts  you  down  a  fool  or  a  knave,  what  does 
it  matter?  There  is  probably  some  supreme  being 
who  shares  with  you  the  knowledge  that  you  are 
right.  It's  a  very  easy  creed  and  a  very  cowardly 

84 


THE    CHURCH    MILITANT 

one.  A  very  usual  form  of  funk  is  that  which 
makes  a  man  an  eccentric." 

The  Duke  nodded  good-naturedly. 

"You  should  have  been  a  barrister,  Peter,"  he 
said,  "always,  of  course,  on  behalf  of  the  Crown; 
in  a  year  we  should  have  a  museum  for  innocent 
men." 

"Sarcasm,  Henry,  is  not  your  strong  point." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  excel  at  it;  only,  fortunately, 
everybody  thinks  it  is  politeness." 

The  Professor  gathered  up  from  the  table  several 
imposing  lists  of  necessaries  for  the  voyage. 

"Very  well,  Henry,"  he  said,  "have  it  your 
own  way.  Only,  if  ever  you  are  faced  with  a  real 
problem,  my  advice  to  you  is  to  do  the  exact  oppo- 
site to  that  which  you  think  right;  otherwise,  take 
my  word  for  it,  you  will  be  wrong." 

The  Duke  walked  over  to  the  window  and 
smiled. 

"Thank  you,  Peter,  for  your  advice,"  he  said; 
"I  shall  do  my  best  to  forget  it  immediately." 

The  Professor  stopped  with  his  hand  on  the 
door. 

"Like  all  idiots,  you  are  as  obstinate  as  a  mule," 
he  said.  "Will  you  or  will  you  not  try  on  those 
sun-helmets?" 

"I  will  not,"  said  the  Duke  pleasantly. 

"Then  I  must  guess  the  size  of  your  head," 
answered  Peter.  "If  it  isn't  seven  and  three- 
eighths,  you  will  endure  agonies  on  the  Equator." 

He  vanished  with  the  last  word,  and  the  Duke, 
who  hardly  ever  spoke  to  his  friend  at  all  without 

85 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

some  such  passage  of  arms,  retired  into  his  chair 
with  the  comfortable  feeling  that  nothing  could 
shake  a  friendship  that  continued  so  steadfast  under 
such  conditions.  And  as  it  was  a  friendship,  curi- 
ous as  it  may  seem,  which  both  valued  exceedingly, 
this  was  very  satisfactory. 

His  long  intimacy  with  the  cynical  Peter,  far 
from  robbing  the  Duke  of  any  of  his  obstinate 
optimism  and  good-will  toward  men,  had  had  the 
opposite  effect.  Like  all  obstinate  men,  the  more 
opposition  that  he  had  received  the  more  tenacious 
of  his  own  theories  of  life  he  became.  And  Henry 
had  had  plenty  of  opposition  from  the  days  of  his 
boyhood,  when  Octavia,  in  short  frocks  but  silk 
stockings,  had  endeavored  to  graft  the  philosophy 
of  Mayfair — a  very  fair  smattering  of  which  she 
had  mastered  at  the  age  of  fourteen — on  to  one 
who  insisted  on  walking  down  Piccadilly  with  his 
feet  on  the  pavement  and  his  head  in  heaven.  This 
attitude  toward  life  is  very  charming  and  attractive, 
but  in  effect  it  simply  amounts  to  not  looking  where 
one  is  going.  And,  as  everyone  knows,  in  a  crowd 
there  is  nothing  more  annoying  than  that. 

Henry  himself  recognized  that  it  was  an  ex- 
tremely lucky  thing  that  he  had  not  had  to  face  and 
solve  any  of  the  more  acute  problems  of  living.  An 
army  of  servants,  headed  by  the  absolutely  in- 
valuable Dunn,  who  remembered  everything,  had 
saved  the  Duke  the  trouble  of  withdrawing  his  head 
from  the  clouds  even  for  a  moment. 

His  ship  sailed  calmly  on,  manned  by  an  excellent 
crew,  and  so,  far  she  had  never  entered  waters 

86 


THE    CHURCH    MILITANT 

where  the  shallows  and  the  reefs  were  known  only 
to  the  captain,  and  where  he  would  be  forced  to 
take  the  wheel  himself. 

Fate,  however,  is  a  theatrical  sort  of  goddess, 
and  she  chose  just  this  moment  for  Dunn  to  come 
in,  bearing  on  a  tray  the  card  of  the  Rev.  Chris- 
topher Warden. 

The  Duke  turned  the  card  over  in  his  fingers. 

"Is  this  someone  I  have  forgotten,  Dunn?"  he 
asked. 

"No,  your  Grace,"  answered  the  valet,  "I  have 
never  seen  the  gentleman  before." 

"Ought  I  to  see  him?" 

Dunn  considered  for  a  moment. 

"I  do  not  know,  your  Grace,"  he  said  at  last. 
"One  judges  men  by  their  trousers,  but  with  the 
clergy  it  is  no  sort  of  guide."  He  paused.  "Per- 
haps," he  went  on  in  a  moment,  "it  would  be  wiser 
to  see  him,  your  Grace." 

"Really,"  said  the  Duke  who  had  done  nothing 
at  all  since  breakfast  except  feed  the  lizard,  "really, 
this  is  a  very  busy  morning." 

As  Dunn  retired  he  sat  down  and  endeavored  to 
remember  the  name  of  Warden,  a  perfectly  hope- 
less proceeding,  as,  even  had  he  met  the  man  the 
day  before,  by  now  he  would  have  completely  for- 
gotten his  existence. 

The  clergyman  came  into  the  room,  a  very  monu- 
ment of  Christianity  determined  to  be  muscular. 
As  the  Duke  rose  and  thrust  out  his  hand,  the  curate 
put  his  firmly  into  the  pockets  of  his  trousers  and 
shook  his  head  slightly. 

87 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  have  not  come  here, "he  said,  "to  shake  hands 
with  you." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  the  Duke  readily.  "Think 
of  the  time  wasted  in  the  world  shaking  hands." 
He  waved  toward  a  chair. 

"No,"  said  the  clergyman.  "What  I  have  to  say 
will  be  better  said  standing." 

The  Duke  sat  down. 

"We  all  have  our  eccentricities,"  he  said.  "You 
will  forgive  me  if  I  prefer  to  sit."  He  took  a  long 
look  at  the  athletic  young  man.  "Correct  me  if  I 
am  wrong,"  he  went  on,  "but  you  appear  to  me 
to  be  angry  about  something." 

"I  have  certainly  done  an  unusual  thing  in  coming 
here  to  see  you,"  said  the  curate  slowly.  "Perhaps 
I  have  done  a  foolish  thing;  my  excuse  is  that  I  am 
an  idealist." 

"So  am  I,"  murmured  the  Duke. 

The  eyes  of  the  clergyman  blazed. 

"Is  the  seduction  of  innocent  women  one  of  your 
ideals?"  he  snapped. 

For  a  moment  or  two  the  Duke  regarded  him  in 
a  puzzled  silence. 

It  was  evident  that  the  young  man  was  very  much 
in  earnest.  Henry  pushed  a  box  of  cigarettes 
toward  the  clergyman. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said,  "it  appears  that  you  and 
I  are  of  some  interest  to  each  other." 

It  seemed  to  the  curate  the  moment  for  falling 
back  upon  his  man-of-the-world  methods.  He  took 
the  chair  indicated  and  lighted  a  cigarette. 

88 


THE    CHURCH   MILITANT 

"Doubtless,"  he  began,  "you  consider  me  an 
impetuous  young  fool." 

The  Duke  answered  nothing;  he  was  blowing 
smoke  rings  with  an  absent-minded  precision  that  was 
amazing. 

"Also,"  his  companion  went  on,  "I  dare  say  all 
clergymen  annoy  you;  I  know  there  are  people 
like  that.  But  we  are  not,  believe  me,  the  whole- 
sale purveyors  of  blame  and  censure  that  the  lazier 
kind  of  layman  likes  to  suppose.  We  recognize 
that  the  world  is  imperfect;  indeed,  it  is  the  struggle 
against  its  imperfections  that  make  a  great  deal  of 
what  is  beautiful  in  it." 

The  Duke  nodded.  Christopher  Warden  had  a 
musical  voice  to  which  it  was  quite  charming  to 
listen. 

"The  seduction  of  women,"  went  on  the  young 
man,  "is  unfortunately  a  common  enough  evil.  In 
all  cases  it  is  very  wrong,  very  sad;  but  there  are 
times" — the  young  man  rose,  his  enormous  presence 
dominating  the  room  —  "there  are  times,  your 
Grace,  when  it  is  damnable,  utterly  damnable  I" 

The  Duke  rose,  too,  and  confronted  the  clergy- 
man. 

"I  go  farther,"  he  said;  "I  say  it  is  always 
damnable  1" 

"You?  You  have  committed  the  sin  in  its  most 
cowardly,  its  most  shameless  form.  You  have 
taken  advantage  of  the  glitter  of  your  wealth  and 
your  title  to  tempt  an  innocent  and  clean  girl." 

,The  Duke's  eyes  strayed  toward  the  window. 
89 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Very  wrong  of  me,"  he  murmured.  "How 
thankful  Peter  would  be  to  hear  it  I" 

"You  prefer  to  forget  it?" 

"I  always  forget  everything,  Mr.  Warden.  If 
there  are  any  women  I  have  seduced  my  servant 
will  be  sure  to  have  made  a  note  of  it." 

The  clergyman  looked  grave. 

"One  cannot  joke,"  he  said,  "about  a  soul  that 
is  hurt.  It  is  blasphemy." 

"My  dear  sir,"  answered  the  Duke,  "there  is  not 
one  woman  whose  virtue  has  ever  suffered  on  my 
account." 

His  companion  shook  his  head. 

"One  expects  denials,"  he  said.  "But  I  am 
not  a  fool;  a  girl  in  Bermondsey  only  gets  two 
pounds  a  week  from  a  peer  of  the  realm  for  one 
reason." 

The  Duke  looked  puzzled,  and  Warden  felt  that 
the  moment  to  which  he  had  been  working  was 
come. 

"It's  not  true,  then?"  he  cried.  "As  I  sus- 
pected, she  told  a  lie.  You  have  never  heard  of 
Molly  Shine,  or  of  Number  Three  Ball  Street?" 

"Of  course,"  said  the  Duke;  "the  girl  at  the 
Zoo!" 

His  mind  traveled  back  slowly  to  Molly,  and 
he  conjured  up  a  dim  picture  in  his  brain  of  that 
tea  they  had  had  together  in  Regent's  Park.  So 
she  had  taken  advantage  of  him,  after  all!  He 
had  heard,  of  course,  that  women  did  this  sort  of 
thing,  but  it  was  a  side  of  life  with  which  he  was 
coming  into  touch  for  the  first  time.  He  smiled  a 

90 


THE    CHURCH    MILITANT 

little  as  he  thought  of  Lady  Octavia's  many  warn- 
ings about  indiscriminate  charity. 

Then  the  smile  disappeared.  He  remembered 
the  sympathy  he  had  felt  for  the  girl,  whose  circum- 
stances were  robbing  her  of  what  should  be  free  to 
everyone — her  dreams.  And  all  the  time  she  had 
never  seen  the  Golden  Gate  at  all.  She  was  one  of 
those  who  play  in  the  puddles  of  the  world  and  find 
their  pleasure  in  making  mud  pies.  If  there  was 
one  thing  the  Duke  hated  above  all  others,  it  was 
to  be  disillusioned.  So  long  as  he  was  allowed  to 
go  through  life  believing  what  he  wished  to  believe, 
and  shutting  his  eyes  obstinately  to  the  facts  which 
he  liked  to  pretend  did  not  exist,  he  was  happy. 
It  was  a  selfish  plan  of  existence,  and  Henry  would 
have  been  the  first  to  admit  it.  But  it  was  the  way 
in  which  he  found  happiness,  and  he  had  never  been 
able  to  make  the  necessary  effort  to  throw  it  off. 
His  whole  life,  his  wealth,  his  rank,  had  conspired 
toward  making  it  possible  for  him  to  create  his  own 
paradise  and  lock  the  gates  firmly  against  intruders. 
And  now  he  had  put  his  own  head  outside,  and 
was  faced  with  one  of  the  very  muddiest  of  the 
puddles  of  which  he  had  so  persistently  ignored  the 
existence. 

His  voice  was  a  little  hard  as  he  turned  to  the 
clergyman  again. 

"And  the  girl,"  he  asked,  "what  does  she 
say?" 

The  young  man  had  entirely  misunderstood  the 
Duke's  silence;  he  saw  in  it  the  breathing  space 
required  by  a  scoundrel  who  is  found  out  and  is 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

rapidly  turning  over  in  his  mind  the  ways  and  the 
price  of  escape. 

"The  girl?"  he  echoed.  "She  denies  it,  of 
course.  Have  you  ever  known  the  woman  who 
would  not  defend,  with  her  last  breath,  the  man  who 
has  wronged  her?" 

The  Duke's  face  became  suddenly  wreathed  in 
smiles. 

"Do  they?"  he  asked.  "Now  the  female  lizard 
is  very  different;  most  ferocious  when  annoyed  by 
the  male." 

He  found  himself  surprised  at  the  delight  he  felt 
in  the  knowledge  that  he  had  not  been  deceived  in 
Molly,  after  all.  He  would  not  have  known  her 
by  sight  if  he  had  met  her  in  the  street,  but  what 
mattered  was  that  he  had  been  right.  The  triumph 
of  Lady  Octavia  was  not  yet. 

He  seated  himself  again  and  selected  another 
cigarette. 

"Go  on,"  he  said  happily  to  the  clergyman. 
"Go  on." 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SIMPLE    SOULS 

THE  Rev.  Christopher  Warden  regarded  the  Duke 
for  a  few  moments  without  saying  anything. 
Vaguely  and  with  a  growing  feeling  of  irritation,  he 
was  beginning  to  suspect  that  he  was  out  of  his  depth. 
For  one  thing,  whenever  this  man  with  the  pleasant 
smile  and  gray  eyes  opened  his  mouth,  he  not  only 
said  something  utterly  unexpected,  but  also  something 
which  entirely  scattered  his  interlocutor's  continuity 
of  thought  and  made  conversation  a  matter  of  con- 
tinual mental  starting  again.  Moreover,  his  smile 
and  his  pose  were  not  those  of  a  bland  villain. 
What  they  meant  the  curate  was  entirely  unable  to 
conjecture.  His  speculations  stopped  short  with  a 
sense  of  discomfiture  and  ignorance,  and,  as  it  is  in 
the  nature  of  man  and  beast  to  suspect  that  which 
he  cannot  understand,  the  clergyman's  attitude  to- 
ward Henry  grew  gradually  the  more  hostile  as  his 
preconceived  notions  of  the  man  were  first  checked, 
then  scattered,  routed,  and  finally  lost  in  a  fog  of 
bewilderment.  Naturally  enough,  being  in  the  very 
center  of  Piccadilly,  he  suspected  everything  except 
simplicity. 

How  often  in  Bermondsey,  with  that  broad-mind- 
edness which  he  considered  part  of  his  stock  in  trade, 
had  he  quoted  with  a  smile,  "It  takes  all  sorts  to 

93 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

make  a  world !"  But  how  many  of  those  who  make 
use  of  this  well-worn  adage  ever  consider  that  God, 
who  made  the  murderer,  the  thief,  or  the  roue,  has 
balanced  all  things  on  earth  and  fashioned  their 
counterparts  in  the  other  side  of  the  scale  ?  We  are 
so  trained  nowadays  to  understand  complexities  that 
it  is  only  unawares  that  we  stumble  upon  simplicity. 
Yet  all  the  multitudinous  intricacies  of  modern  life 
rest,  some  firmly,  some  insecurely,  upon  a  simple 
truth.  Blessed  are  they  that  never  "progress"  so 
far  as  to  be  out  of  sight  of  their  starting  point. 
After  all,  we  envy  the  children  because  we  know  they 
are  still  in  Eden,  little  Adams  and  little  Eves  who 
will  all  too  soon  pluck  the  apple  and  be  as  those  who 
have  "progressed." 

But  this  is  a  digression  and  entirely  unjustifiable. 

After  some  few  moments  of  puzzled  silence,  the 
clergyman  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair. 

"I  do  not  really  know,"  he  said,  "what  motive  it 
was  that  sent  me  here  on  an  errand  not  only  hopeless 
but,  in  the  circumstances,  absurd;  I  think  it  was  the 
sight  of  that  girl  trying  to  bear  up,  with  a  smile  upon 
her  lips,  against  the  inevitable  results  of  her  sin — 
your  sin,"  he  added  with  sudden  venom.  "Molly 
was  always  a  good  girl;  it  is  all  the  harder  for  her  to 
hear  the  sneers  of  her  neighbors,  the  silence  of  her 
friends." 

The  Duke  sighed. 

"Is  it  possible?"  he  murmured. 

The  curate  just  caught  the  last  word. 

"In  Bermondsey,"  he  said,  "we  draw  a  far  firmer 
line  between  good  and  bad  than  you  do  in  Belgravia." 

94 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Perhaps,"  said  Henry  gravely.  "And  where  is 
Miss  Shine  now?  In  Bermondsey ?" 

"No,"  replied  the  curate,  dropping  his  bomb  with 
immense  satisfaction.  "She  is  outside  with  her 
father." 

The  Duke  rose. 

"Surely,  Mr.  Warden,"  he  said,  "you  have  for- 
gotten your  manners,  to  leave  a  lady  standing  in  the 
street!"  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  began  to 
play  again  with  the  overfed  and  uncomfortable 
lizard. 

The  clergyman  drew  up  the  corners  of  his  lips  in 
a  slight  sneer. 

"Would  you  rather,"  he  asked,  "that  I  brought 
her  in  here?" 

"Of  course,"  answered  the  Duke. 

The  young  man  stared  at  him,  and  suddenly,  to  his 
great  annoyance  and  for  no  reason  at  all  that  he 
could  see,  felt  the  blood  rushing  to  his  face  like  a 
schoolboy  who  has  been  snubbed  at  his  first  dance. 

"Very  well,"  he  cried  in  a  voice  rather  unneces- 
sarily loud,  "I'll  bring  her  in." 

And  he  left  the  room  hurriedly  with  a  sense  of 
defeat  for  which  he  could  assign  no  cause. 

Left  to  himself,  the  Duke  walked  slowly  across 
to  the  window  and  gazed  out  on  a  typical  London 
fog.  He  smiled  as  he  recognized  how  exact  a  replica 
this  was  of  his  state  of  mind  toward  the  problem  with 
which  he  was  faced.  For  that  his  first  real  problem 
had  now  arisen  he  had  no  doubt. 

Originally,  he  could  not  help  feeling,  he  had  only 
done  the  reasonable  thing.  Out  of  the  superfluity 

95 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

which  had  been  his  by  inheritance,  he  had  tried  to 
divert  a  little  pleasure  into  the  life  of  one  whose 
cup  was  not  so  full.  And  now,  as  the  direct  and 
immediate  result,  this  had  happened. 

It  annoyed  Henry  considerably  to  feel  that  no  one 
in  the  matter  could  be  blamed.  Each  was  acting  for 
the  best  according  to  his  own  particular  lights.  He 
bit  his  lip  and  stared  into  the  fog. 

Was  this,  then,  the  result  of  being  a  prig?  He 
could  imagine  the  airy  way  with  which  Peter  and 
Octavia,  and  indeed  the  vast  majority  of  quite  decent- 
living  folk,  would  dismiss  the  problem.  But  just  be- 
cause he  had  never  mixed  freely  with  the  world,  and 
never  learned  the  accepted  values  of  life,  he  could  not 
dismiss  it  thus  easily.  He  had,  throughout  his  whole 
life,  acted  on  and  thought  along  a  creed  which  had 
never  been  asked  to  stand  the  test  of  rubbing  shoul- 
ders with  the  world.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  it  was 
called  upon  to  prove  itself,  and  he  must  either  shelve 
it  or  .  .  . 

But  Henry  believed  in  the  creed  which  he  had 
evolved  for  himself  among  his  books  and  his  animals. 
It  was  no  mere  theory  to  him.  He  realized  this  now 
for  the  first  time,  seeing  plainly  that  if  he  was  forced 
to  admit  its  inability  to  cope  with  the  first  problem  it 
had  come  up  against,  he  would  have  to  begin  all  over 
again — in  fact,  the  stimulus  of  his  whole  course  of 
life  would  be  torn  up  by  the  roots. 

It  was  this  fear,  too,  which  had  clutched  with  an 
icy  hand  at  Molly's  heart  when  she  had  been  faced 
with  the  idea  of  giving  up  her  right  to  dream.  She, 
too,  had  felt  that  once  the  world  she  understood  was 

96 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

taken  from  her,  only  the  quicksands  of  unreasoning 
obedience  to  convention  would  be  left.  She  had  not 
put  it  to  herself  like  that,  since  hers  was  an  unedu- 
cated intelligence.  Rather  had  she  felt  a  vague  and 
dreadful  fear  of  the  unknown,  which  had  been  suffi- 
cient to  make  her  cling  to  her  own  frail  structure  of 
belief  even  in  the  very  face  of  disaster. 

The  Duke,  on  the  other  hand,  with  his  trained  and 
scientific  mind,  could  see  plainly  not  only  the  painful 
effects  of  such  a  mental  revolution,  but  also  the  waste 
of  time  involved  in  building  up  new  foundations, 
were  he  to  abandon  the  building  already  all  but  com- 
pleted. 

The  way  is  hard  for  those  who  have  grown  up 
in  a  nursery  of  their  own.  And  as  the  Duke  stared 
into  the  yellow,  uncompromising  fog,  he  shook  his 
head  slightly,  and  in  that  movement  signified  the 
intention  of  sticking  to  his  ship  and  trusting  to  the 
vessel  he  himself  had  built. 

"To  do  what  one  thinks  right  at  the  moment,"  he 
had  said  to  his  niece,  "and  to  correct  one's  mistakes 
as  they  occur." 

He  came  slowly  back  to  his  chair. 

"Correct  one's  mistakes  as  they  occur."  He  real- 
ized that  the  difficult  part  of  his  creed  was  before 
him  for  the  first  time. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  the  solution  it  offered. 
There  was  only  one  way  of  correcting  the  mistake 
that  had  occurred.  No  amount  of  arguing  would 
persuade  these  people  of  the  truth.  No  amount  of 
conviction  could  undo  the  insults  to  which  the  girl 
had  already  been  subjected. 

97 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

He  must  either  "correct  the  mistake,"  or  desert  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy  and  leave  his  standard  in  rags 
on  the  field  of  its  first  battle. 

"Octavia  would  never  understand,"  he  murmured, 
picking  up  the  little  cage  and  addressing  the  inside, 
"but  you  see  there  are  really  no  two  questions  about 
it,  are  there  ?" 

The  sleepy  lizard  lifted  one  eye  sharply  and  closed 
it  again.  The  matter  was  settled. 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  beg  you,  stockbrokers, 
business  men,  ladies  of  fashion,  philosophers,  cos- 
mopolitans, to  refrain  from  laughing.  Please  re- 
member that  Henry  was  a  peer  of  the  realm. 

When  Molly  came  into  the  room,  a  few  moments 
later,  followed  by  the  curate  and  a  very  sheepish- 
looking  Samuel  Shine,  the  Duke  was  leaning  back 
in  his  chair,  with  a  cigarette  between  his  lips,  and 
his  smile  of  greeting  told  Molly  at  once  that  the 
picture  of  him  that  she  had  retained  was  the  picture 
with  which  she  had  originally  fallen  in  love.  As  he 
rose  and  held  out  his  hand  she  gave  a  little  involun- 
tary shiver.  As  her  hand  touched  his  she  experi- 
enced a  thrill  which  had  never  come  her  way  before. 
And  it  was  a  thrill  of  pure  pleasure,  for  Molly  was 
one  of  those  women  by  whom  a  hopeless  passion  was 
far  more  to  be  desired  than  none  at  all,  and,  although 
the  prayer  she  had  breathed  in  the  first  moment  of 
realization — that  he  might  prove  to  be  something 
more  approachable  than  a  Duke — had  been  quite 
sincere,  she  was  content  now  with  the  desperately 
one-sided  love-affair  which  she  knew  it  must  be. 

But  as  she  dropped  his  hand  her  momentary 
98 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

ecstasy  fell  away  to  a  feeling  of  dull  despair.  What 
could  he  think  of  all  this?  Above  all,  what  could 
he  think  of  her,  the  centre  figure  in  the  sordid  little 
picture  ? 

As  for  Mr.  Shine,  he  stood  on  the  rug,  just  inside 
the  door,  twirling  his  cap  in  agitated  fingers  and 
wishing  to  heaven  he  had  never  been  persuaded  to 
come.  The  solemn  splendors  of  his  surroundings, 
the  staircases,  the  pictures,  the  great  pieces  of  furni- 
ture about  Wynninghame  House,  all  of  which  had 
had  no  effect  upon  Molly  at  all,  had  struck  him  dumb 
and  reduced  him  to  a  condition  of  muddled  abase- 
ment. 

Thus  he  found  himself  shaking  hands  with  the 
Duke  and  saying  "Good  morning,  sir,"  in  the  same 
sort  of  voice  with  which  he  followed  the  prayers  in 
church,  and  this  was  the  more  odd  as,  all  the  way 
from  Bermondsey  he  had  been  rehearsing  a  scene 
in  which  he  was  the  outraged  father  and  the  Duke 
a  villain  exposed,  offering,  if  the  truth  must  be  told, 
large  sums  of  money  as  compensation  for  his  mis- 
doing. 

"It  is  very  nice,"  the  Duke  was  saying  to  Molly, 
"to  see  you  again." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  she  replied,  almost  in  a 
whisper. 

Henry  guided  her  to  a  chair. 

"And  have  you  been  receiving  the  money  regu- 
larly?" he  asked. 

"Yes,  thank  you,  sir." 

"And  the  silly  books — are  they  satisfactory?" 

"Yes,  thank  you,  sir." 

99 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  went  back  to  his  chair  and  his  eye 
wandered  toward  the  clergyman. 

"But  other  things,  I  gather,  are  not,"  he  said 
slowly. 

Molly  felt  herself  blushing  horribly  and  hung  her 
head. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  "just  what  has  happened." 

"I     ...     I  can't,"  she  murmured. 

"You  told  them  the  truth,"  he  asked  gently. 

"Yes." 

"And  then?" 

"They  will  never  believe  it;  they  can't,  sir." 

The  Duke  said  nothing  and,  since  the  silence 
positively  hurt  her,  Molly  felt  she  must  go  on  talking. 

"I  knew  this  would  happen,"  she  said;  "I  oughtn't 
to  have  taken  the  money." 

"And  why  did  you?"  asked  the  Duke. 

She  stared  for  a  moment  at  her  boots. 

"Because  of  what  you  said,  sir,"  she  whispered; 
"about  clinging  to  one's  dreams." 

"Ah!"  The  monosyllable  broke  unbidden  from 
his  lips;  he  had,  then,  made  a  convert  unawares. 
The  responsibility  was  his. 

"Even,"  Molly  was  going  on  in  a  low  voice,  "even 
if  one  loses  everything  else." 

He  leaned  forward. 

"And  you  believe  that?" 

"Oh,  sir — I'm  trying  to." 

It  was  absurd  to  see  how  seriously  these  two  took 
themselves.  The  curate's  lips  curled  a  little  cynic- 
ally. There  was  evidently  a  very  complete  under- 
standing between  them,  he  thought. 

100 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  lay  back  in  his  chair. 

"What  happened,"  he  asked,  "when  they  found 
out  and  ...  er  ...  interpreted  the 
affair?" 

The  girl  sighed. 

"Father  thrashed  me,"  she  said,  and  a  smile  broke 
out  on  her  lips.  The  bathos  of  that  thrashing 
seemed  more  evident  than  ever  now. 

"Very  wrong  of  him,"  said  Henry  firmly,  fixing 
his  gaze  upon  Samuel  Shine,  who  wished  sincerely 
that  an  oubliette  would  deposit  him  at  once  under 
the  ground — or  at  any  rate  in  the  servants'  hall. 

"They'll  never  believe  us,  sir,"  said  Molly. 

"No,"  he  answered;  "I  think  one  can  hardly  ex- 
pect them  to.  Only  those  who  are  fast  asleep  can 
be  expected  to  dream  efficiently.  Besides,"  he  added 
simply,  "you  are  beautiful;  that  is  a  great  mistake. 
It  is  always  the  women  with  the  worst  figures  who 
are  credited  with  the  best  intentions." 

Molly  felt  her  head  whirl  with  all  the  sensations 
she  had  had  when  she  first  touched  his  hand.  He 
had  said  she  was  beautiful!  She  heard  his  voice 
again. 

"And  since  the  catastrophe?"  he  was  asking 
smoothly. 

She  was  thankful  that  it  was  the  clergyman  who 
answered;  she  felt  she  could  not  trust  herself. 

"Since?"  the  young  man  said.  "One  cannot  sin 
without  paying  the  price,  your  Grace!"  He  heard 
the  Duke  sigh.  "One  cannot  even  commit  indis- 
cretions," he  added,  "without  paying  the  price. 
Molly  Shine  is  cut  by  her  friends — she  is  a  bad 

101 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

companion  for  her  sister,  and  her  mother's  love  for 
her  will  never  be  the  same  again." 

Molly  gave  a  short  laugh,  and  Samuel  Shine  found 
his  voice  for  the  first  time. 

"Now,  then,  my  girl,"  he  said. 

It  was  a  kind  of  loyalty  to  Em  that  dragged  a 
protest  against  Molly's  laugh  from  his  lips. 

The  Duke  turned. 

"Is  all  that  true?"  he  asked.  "Have  they  made 
you  as  miserable  as  that?" 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"I  can  stick  it,"  she  said.     "It  isn't  your  fault." 

The  Duke  rose  and  faced  the  two  men. 

"Good  God!"  he  said  suddenly,  then  wheeled 
away  to  the  window.  He  was  furiously  angry  with 
himself.  He  saw  how  the  few  words  he  had  let  fall 
had  taken  root  in  the  girl's  heart,  and  how  she  had 
tried  to  rear  that  hothouse  plant  in  unprotected  soil. 
And  he  had  thought,  for  one  moment,  that  she  had 
never  felt  the  need  to  enter  the  Golden  Gate  I  Why, 
her  knuckles  were  bleeding  from  knocking  at  the 
bars.  He  saw  himself  inside  the  gates,  one  to  whom 
the  keys  had  been  given  for  the  asking.  He  con- 
jured up  a  picture  of  himself  looking  out  through 
the  gates  one  day  and  seeing  her  and  saying,  "Life 
is  grand  inside,"  and  then  marching  away  to  leave 
her  to  the  mercies  of  those  who  would  force  her 
fingers  away  from  their  hold.  As  he  gazed  out  into 
the  fog  he  was  not  ashamed  that  his  eyes  became 
moist  when  he  thought  of  the  little  figure  in  the 
chair  behind  him,  blindly  trusting,  in  the  face  of 
overwhelming  disaster,  the  stray  words  he  had  let 

1 02 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

drop  to  her  and  forgotten.  He  could  see  vaguely 
the  sort  of  men  who  were  pointing  their  fingers  at 
her  in  her  own  surroundings — the  Peters  of  Ber- 
mondsey  and  the  Octavias  of  Ball  Street.  He 
squared  his  shoulders  and  thrust  his  hands  deep 
into  his  pockets.  He  had  always  fought  with  the 
gentle  weapon  of  words  against  the  cheap  cynicisms 
and  the  meretricious  values  of  Peter's  life,  the 
worldly  code  which  governed  Octavia's  existence. 
Now  he  was  called  upon  to  quit  the  guerrilla  warfare 
of  Mayfair  drawing-rooms  and  fight  a  pitched  battle, 
or  desert  for  ever  the  Cause  that  he  had  lazily  es- 
poused for  twenty  years.  Very  well,  he  accepted  the 
challenge.  He  would  fight.  He  swung  round  sud- 
denly and  crossed  the  room  to  Molly. 

"Will  you  marry  me?"  he  said. 

A  little  gasp  escaped  from  Molly's  lips,  and  her 
face  went  very  white.  Samuel  Shine  breathed 
heavily,  and  his  hands  flapped  in  a  vague,  silly  sort 
of  way. 

It  was  the  curate  who  broke  the  spell.  He  had 
taken  a  sudden  step  forward  at  the  abrupt  question, 
and  his  foot,  catching  in  the  chair  at  the  desk,  over- 
turned it. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  muttered,  as  he  stooped 
to  pick  it  up.  When  he  rose  he  regarded  the  Duke 
sternly. 

"I  did  not  think,  your  Grace,"  he  said,  "that  a 
man  in  your  position  could  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
make  a  joke  of  that  description." 

Henry  laughed. 

"Allow  me  to  point  out,  Mr.  Warden,"  he  said, 
103 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"that  you  are  a  very  young  man.  A  very  nice  young 
man,  I  am  sure,  but  just  at  the  age  when  we  are 
sure  that  we  know  the  whole  world.  Believe 
me,  that  is  always  a  mistake."  He  turned  to 
Molly. 

"Do  you  think,"  he  said,  "that  you  would  find  it 
possible  to  get  on  with  me?" 

She  got  out  of  the  chair  and  moved  past  him  a 
little  shakily. 

"Don't,  sir,"  she  said  suddenly.  "You  .  .  . 
you  .  .  .  it's  just  because  you're  a  good  man 
you  say  that.  We  haven't  done  anything  wrong. 
It's  the  silly  world " 

He  regarded  her  gravely.  The  two  onlookers 
found  themselves  completely  ignored.  As  for 
Samuel  Shine,  nothing  on  earth  could  have  loosened 
his  tongue  at  that  moment. 

"My  child,"  said  the  Duke,  "I  do  not  think  it  fair 
for  you  to  suppose  I  could  insult  you  like  that.  I 
have  asked  you  to  marry  me.  I  want  to  know 
whether  you  feel  you  could  ever  care  for  me  ?"  He 
offered  her  marriage  as  a  man  offers  to  put  up  an- 
other for  a  good  club;  but  Molly  could  endure  no 
more. 

"Care  for  you !"  The  cry  was  wrung  from  her. 
"Don't  you  know  that  my  whole  world  only  holds 
you?  Don't  you  know  I  love  you  so  ...  so 
that  it  hurts  like  hell?" 

The  tears  rushed  to  her  eyes  and  blinded  her. 
He  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder.  How  could  he 
have  known  this?  The  floodgates  of  human  emo- 
tion had  suddenly  been  let  loose  on  Henry,  the  hermit 

104 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

of  Piccadilly.  It  had  never  entered  his  head  to 
guess  that  it  was  because  she  loved  him  that  she 
had  clung  so  tightly  to  her  dreams.  The  one  gift 
he  had  ever  given  her. 

She  was  not  a  convert,  after  all,  then,  only  a 
woman  in  love.  But  he  had  gone  too  far  now;  and, 
anyway,  there  was  nothing  else  to  do. 

He  bent  down  and  kissed  her  hand,  entirely  un- 
conscious of  the  inadequacy  of  the  gesture. 

"Then  we  may  consider  ourselves  engaged  to  be 
married,"  he  said. 

The  clergyman  suddenly  found  his  voice. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  he  said  hoarsely,  "that 
you  are  willing  to  marry  Molly?" 

"Of  course,"  answered  the  Duke  shortly. 

"In  church?" 

Henry  smiled. 

"Wherever  these  things  are  done,"  he  said. 

Then  Samuel  Shine  spoke  for  the  second  time. 

"There's  something  wrong  'ere,"  he  said.  "I'd 
rather  'ave  two  tenners." 

Molly  rose  and  came  over  to  the  Duke. 

"But  you  don't  care  for  me,"  she  said.  "You 
can't." 

"Have  I  not  asked  you  to  marry  me?" 

"That  is  because  you're  sorry  for  me." 

He  looked  into  her  large  brown  eyes  which  re- 
minded him  of  a  frightened  hare,  and  realized  that 
this  pitched  battle  under  the  standard  of  his  ideals 
had  committed  him  to  many  things. 

"I  care  for  you,"  he  said  slowly,  "a  great  deal 
— a  very  great  deal." 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

It  was  the  first  lie  he  had  told  consciously  for 
many  years. 

She  looked  him  steadily  in  the  face  for  some 
moments,  then  suddenly  gave  a  little  sigh  and  turned 
away.  It  might  have  been  a  sigh  of  content,  or  it 
might  have  been  a  sigh  of  regret.  Henry's  knowl- 
edge* of  women  was  not  extensive  enough  to  enable 
him  to  tell  the  difference. 

The  clergyman  held  out  his  hand  jerkily  and  with 
the  other  picked  up  his  hat. 

"I  never  thought,"  he  began,  "I  never  imagined 
for  an  instant  .  .  ." 

But  that  was  as  far  as  he  could  get.  He  turned 
round  to  Shine,  who  was  staring  at  the  Duke  as  if 
he  were  an  exhibit  in  a  museum. 

"Come  along,  Shine,"  he  said;  "we  aren't  wanted 
here."  He  took  the  man's  arm  and  steered  him 
toward  the  door.  As  the  cabinet-maker  went  out 
he  was  murmuring  thickly,  "Duchess  o'  Wynning- 
hame!  My  Gawd!  Duchess  o'  Wynninghame !" 


106 


CHAPTER   IX 

WIGS  ON  THE  GREEN 

ONE  of  the  immediate  results  of  the  Duke's  offer  of 
marriage  had  been  to  remove  the  last  doubt  the 
curate  had  entertained  as  to  the  relations  between 
him  and  Molly.  Perhaps  the  sight  of  the  girl  had 
revived  his  original  passion;  perhaps  he  had  been 
sincerely  sorry  for  what  he  had  done,  and  decided 
to  make  what  reparation  was  in  his  power,  though 
such  readiness  to  pay  debts  was  not  usual.  Any- 
way, the  outcome  was  as  satisfactory  as  it  had  been 
unexpected,  and  it  left  both  the  clergyman  and  the 
cabinet-maker  curiously  silent  and  puzzled  on  their 
way  back  to  Bermondsey.  In  fact,  Samuel  Shine 
frankly  did  not  believe  his  own  ears. 

This  confirmation  of  the  original  suspicion  was 
another  by-product  of  the  Duke's  determination  to 
adhere  to  his  standard,  which  his  Grace  had  not  fore- 
seen. It  was  always  the  inevitable  that  escaped  his 
notice,  the  indefinite  that  engrossed  his  attention. 

After  the  two  men  had  left  the  room  there  came 
a  long  silence.  She  stood  under  the  great  window, 
knowing  to  the  full  the  feminine  ecstasy  of  belonging 
to  a  man.  She  was  his.  How  sweet  it  would  be  to 
feel  him  hit  her  or  kiss  her  I  How  she  could  revel 
in  the  joy  of  surrender ! 

These  were  the  emotions  which  were  flooding  her 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

whole  being  and  threatening  to  bring  the  tears  to 
her  eyes. 

She  showed  none  of  it.  She  simply  stood  under 
the  window,  her  hands  locked  together,  her  big 
brown  eyes  half  veiled  by  her  lashes,  looking  gently 
out  on  her  new  world  with  the  puzzled  submission  of 
one  of  Raphael's  Madonnas. 

And  Henry,  looking  at  her,  felt  curiously  uneasy. 

He  knew  the  ambiguity  of  his  sentence,  "I  do 
care  for  you" — he  knew  that  it  might  mean  one 
thing  to  her  and  another  to  himself.  He  did  care 
for  her,  as  he  cared  for  all  forlorn  things  and  for  so 
many  lost  Causes,  for  he  was  one  in  whom  the  pro- 
tective instinct  swamped  altogether  .the  ordinary 
emotions  of  a  man  toward  a  woman.  Then  he  knew 
that  he  could  never  love  her  as  a  woman  demands 
to  be  loved,  and,  moreover,  he  was  not  the  kind  of 
man  who  can  live  a  lie,  however  good  the  Cause. 

He  must  tell  her  and  let  her  choose.  Yet  some- 
how, when  he  raised  his  eyes  and  saw  her  standing 
there,  and  realized  how  utterly  she  had  given  herself 
to  him,  the  words  would  not  come. 

But  the  depths  of  feminine  intuition  were  un- 
revealed  to  Henry,  and  it  came  as  a  shock  to  him 
when  she  asked  suddenly : 

"Why  did  you  ask  me  to  marry  you?" 

He  did  not  answer.  He  could  hardly  explain 
that  she  was  incidental  to  his  justifying  his  creed  to 
himself.  That  sounded  too  selfish,  though  it  was 
undoubtedly  the  truth. 

"You  don't  love  me,"  she  was  saying  calmly. 
"Why  should  you?  .  .  ."  (And  all  the  time 

icS 


WIGS    ON    THE    GREEN 

her  heart  was  beating  into  her  head,  in  its  perverse 
womanly  way,  "Why  shouldn't  he  ?  He  said  I  was 
beautiful.  Why  shouldn't  he?") 

The  Duke  came  slowly  toward  her  and  took  her 
hand;  he  led  her  over  to  the  armchair  and  sat  down, 
pulling  her  gently  on  to  its  arm  by  his  side. 

"Little  one,"  he  said,  as  he  would  have  spoken 
to  a  child,  "listen  to  me.  I  have  never  loved  any 
woman.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  could  love  any 
woman.  What  you  mean  when  you  speak  to  me  of 
love  is  an  emotion  I  know  nothing  of." 

"You  are  sorry  for  me  ?"  she  asked. 

"Is  that  wrong  of  me?"  The  simplicity  of  his 
question  broke  down  the  pride  which  he  had  hurt. 

"It  is  dear  of  you — very  dear  of  you,"  she  said 
quickly,  her  hand  tightening  suddenly  upon  his. 
Her  dream-monger  could  do  no  wrong. 

"When  I  offer  you  marriage,"  he  went  on,  "it  is 
because  that  is  the  only  way  in  the  world  we  live  in 
that  I  can  give  you  what  I  want  to  give  you,  what 
you  are  so  very  worthy  of  having — good  dreams." 

She  said  nothing. 

"We  are  two  of  God's  Babies,"  he  went  on,  "and 
I  offer  you  a  share  of  my  nursery.  It  has  more  toys 
in  it  than  yours.  Will  you  take  it — on  those  terms  ?" 

She  dropped  her  head  a  little,  and  the  curl  that 
played  about  her  ear  brushed  his  cheek.  He  did  not 
move.  Like  all  girls,  she  had  dreamed  of  the  pro- 
posal she  would  one  day  accept,  but  how  different 
those  dreams  had  been  from  this ! 

Her  voice  was  a  little  broken  as  she  replied : 

"You  are  a  good  man,"  she  said.  "I  didn't  know 
109 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

there  were  men  so  good.  I  ...  oh  1  ... 
I  love  you  too  much  to  let  you  go.  You  are  too 
wonderful." 

"My  dear,"  he  answered  gravely,  "they  tell  me  I 
am  a  prig." 

She  looked  at  him  equally  gravely  and  replied: 

"I  will  tell  you  that  when  you  have  kissed  me." 

He  drew  down  her  face  and  kissed  her  on  the  lips. 
So  he  had  kissed  Mary  Blake  when  she  was  a  little 
girl. 

Molly  raised  her  eyes  and  smiled. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "you  are  a  prig.  But  I  will  make 
you  love  me  like  hell  one  day.  Am  I  the  first  woman 
you  have  ever  kissed?" 

He  nodded. 

"And  you?"  he  asked. 

She  was  very  much  a  woman. 

"That  is  nothing  to  you,"  she  replied,  "for  you 
do  not  love  me,  and  you  have  taken  me  on  trust." 

"My  whole  life,"  he  said,  "has  been  spent  by 
instinct." 

"At  any  rate,"  she  answered,  still  fencing  with 
his  impassivity,  "I  know  more  about  what  a  kiss 
should  be  than  you." 

He  smiled. 

"They  say,"  he  said,  "that  we  come  naked  into 
the  world;  it  is  untrue.  A  woman  is  born  with  a 
kiss  in  each  hand." 

She  became  suddenly  grave  again  and  a  little 
ashamed  of  herself. 

"Will  you  let  me  try  to  make  you  love  me?"  she 
asked  simply. 

no 


WIGS    ON    THE    GREEN 

"I  am  not  sure,"  he  answered,  "that  it  is  not  a 
wife's  duty."  But  he  was  not  thinking  of  love,  and 
she  knew  it. 

She  drew  her  hand  out  of  his  after  that,  and  sat 
for  a  long  time  on  the  arm  of  the  chair  in  silence. 
Her  thoughts  followed  one  another  like  the  waves 
of  an  incoming  tide.  She  tried  to  be  unselfish,  to 
realize  what  his  relations  would  say,  what  this  mar- 
riage would  mean  to  him — yet  all  the  time  something 
was  telling  her  that  none  of  his  relations  understood 
him  as  she  understood  him,  or  could  give  him  the 
sympathy  that  she  could  give  him — all  these  thoughts 
tumbled  over  one  another  in  her  mind.  And  then, 
like  the  bigger  wave  that  flings  itself  contemptuously 
in  as  the  tide  rolls  up  and  out,  swamping  the  others 
and  leaving  them  only  a  ridge  of  foam  and  splutter, 
so  her  great  love  for  the  dream-monger  surged  over 
her  again  until  all  other  ideas  were  scattered,  and 
she  wanted  simply  to  fling  her  arms  round  his  neck 
and  tell  him  that  she  was  all  his.  But  at  the  same 
time  she  knew  that  he  wouldn't  understand,  so  she 
got  up,  and  going  over  to  the  desk,  stood  there  a 
few  moments  nervously  fingering  the  books  and 
papers. 

At  last  she  turned. 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "If  you  are  sure  you  want 
it,  I'll  share  the  nursery  with  you." 

He  rose  and  crossed  to  her. 

"Welcome,  fellow  Babe,"  he  said  with  his  old- 
world  air,  and  for  the  second  time  he  kissed  her 
hand.  And  if  her  lips  trembled  as  she  looked  over 
his  bowed  shoulders,  he  never  saw  it.  He  did  not 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

understand — how  should  he? — the  dreadful  naked- 
ness of  a  love  that  is  not  returned. 

And  so,  for  a  moment  or  two,  they  stood  there 
in  silence,  a  whimsical,  ridiculous,  tragical  couple, 
whose  union  would  be  so  much  matter  for  the  laugh- 
ter or  condemnation  of  Society.  Yet,  for  all  that, 
they  had  in  their  marriage  a  distinction  which  is  not 
given  to  all — a  pure,  genuine  emotion.  She  loved 
him  with  the  love  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to 
deserve  from  a  woman,  and  he — he  had,  at  any  rate, 
plunged  for  an  ideal,  right  or  wrong. 

Nevertheless,  as  a  combination,  Society  would  be 
justified  in  opining  that  no  two  people  had  ever  asked 
so  surely  and  certainly  for  disaster.  Some  such 
thought  as  this  flashed  through  Henry's  brain  when 
she  turned  to  him  shyly  and  said : 

"Would  you  like  to  take  me  to  the  Pictures?" 

Of  course,  Henry  might  have  known  that  Molly's 
idea  of  a  honeymoon  would  not  coincide  with 
Octavia's,  but  the  thing  had  never  occurred  to  him 
at  all,  and  this  bald  throwback  to  the  courting  con- 
ventions of  Bermondsey  disconcerted  him  not  a  little. 
He  might,  too,  have  realized  that  a  great  love  is 
generally  as  crude  in  its  outward  and  visible  signs  as 
a  vulgar  flirtation,  and — oh,  well!  he  might  have 
remembered  all  the  old  and  true  sayings  about  little 
things  not  mattering  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  But  he 
did  not,  and  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  the  words 
which  were  running  through  his  brain  as  he  answered 
"Of  course"  to  her  invitation,  were  "My  God!  is 
she  going  to  squeeze  my  hand?"  Thus  are  great 
minds  wont  to  waste  time  over  trifles. 

112 


WIGS    ON    THE    GREEN 

As  for  Molly,  she  turned  to  Romance  and  the 
unreal  as  a  bird  turns  toward  the  sky,  and  the  cinema 
was  one  of  the  most  complete  of  her  pleasures. 
Naturally,  therefore,  to  share  it  with  him  was  her 
idea  of  a  fitting  celebration  of  their  engagement. 

And  although  Molly  wanted  to  go  to  the  Pictures 
and  the  Duke  was  afraid  that  she  might  squeeze 
his  hand,  yet  something  of  the  spirit  of  real  Romance 
breathed  over  them  at  the  moment.  Society  would 
have  exercised  an  easy  wit  over  the  dilemma;  and, 
indeed,  Society  was  going  to  enjoy  many  a  laugh 
over  Henry's  crusade,  whereto,  laughter  being  really 
rather  uncommon,  they  are  welcome.  But  for  all 
that,  when  a  smile  comes  too  easily,  beware  of  the 
wit  that  mothers  it.  A  stone  will  make  a  tempest 
in  a  puddle,  but  only  the  winds  of  God  can  ruffle  the 
surface  of  the  Atlantic. 

They  were  about  to  leave  the  room  together  on 
what,  for  the  Duke,  was  a  veritable  voyage  of  dis- 
covery when  the  door  opened,  and  Peter  Graine  came 
in  with  a  white  tropical  helmet  in  each  hand.  He 
stopped  on  seeing  Molly  and  looked  questioningly 
at  Henry,  who  realized  that  the  first  shots  of 
his  campaign  were  about  to  be  fired.  He  re- 
solved to  open  with  a  violent  and  paralyzing 
offensive. 

He  turned  to  Molly. 

"Allow  me  to  introduce  you,"  he  said,  "to  a  very 
old  friend  of  mine,  Professor  Peter  Graine.  Peter, 
this  is  Molly,  who  is  going  to  be  my  wife." 

Luckily  the  helmet  that  the  Professor  dropped 
was  the  one  that  he  held  in  his  right  hand,  so  that  it 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

appeared  that  he  only  freed  it  in  order  to  be  able  to 
shake  hands  with  the  future  Duchess. 

This  he  did  with  an  effort  at  composure.  His 
eyes  rested  on  the  Duke. 

"Congratulations,"  he  murmured. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Henry  imperturbably.  He 
had  never  seen  the  Professor  so  completely  at  a  loss. 
There  was  a  moment's  awkward  silence,  broken  by 
Molly,  who,  looking  smilingly  into  Peter's  face, 
slipped  her  arm  through  the  Duke's  and  remarked, 
"We  are  just  off  to  the  Pictures." 

She  had  realized  at  once  that  she  was  facing  the 
first  of  the  many  antagonists  that  Society  was  going 
to  hurl  against  her,  and  the  simple  statement  that 
they  were  going  to  the  Pictures  was  a  direct  challenge 
to  Society  as  personified  in  the  unhappy  Professor, 
whose  mind  was  already  a  chaos  of  wild  devices  for 
getting  the  Duke  out  of  this  astounding  engagement 
before  Octavia  could  hear  of  it  and  appear  at  Wyn- 
ninghame  House  to  produce  the  inevitable  tornado. 

"I  may  say,"  said  Henry,  "that  we  are  going  to  get 
married  as  soon  as  possible,  as  neither  of  us  believes 
in  a  long  engagement.  It  creates  such  tension  for 
one's  relations.  No  one  has  any  right  to  be  the 
cause  of  the  agony  of  wedding  presents." 

Peter  was  gradually  pulling  himself  together. 

"I  wonder,  Henry,"  he  said,  "whether  you  could 
give  me  a  few  moments  in  private?" 

The  Duke  laughed  and  Molly  looked  up  at  him; 
in  the  brief  silence  she  managed  to  whisper  a  ques- 
tion into  his  ear. 

"Are  you  quite,  quite  sure?"  she  said. 
114 


WIGS    ON    THE    GREEN 

And  he,  realizing  what  she  meant,  and  with  the 
lust  for  battle  on  him,  answered: 

"Quite  sure."    Then  he  turned  to  the  Professor. 

"Peter,"  he  said,  "there  is  no  need  for  any  hedg- 
ing between  you  and  me.  Molly  and  I  are  perfectly 
well  aware  that  our  marriage  will  cause  an  outburst 
of  unwarranted  interference  from  my  relations.  Oc- 
tavia  will  behave  like  a  wildcat.  You,  if  you  had 
any  hair,  would  be  tearing  it  at  this  moment.  Well, 
you  might  as  well  grasp  our  point  of  view,  once  and 
for  all.  We  propose  to  marry  each  other,  even  if 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  himself  forbade  it. 
We  do  not  consider  it  anybody's  business  but  our 
own,  and  we  shall  not  hesitate  to  be  rude  to  people 
about  it.  What's  more,  Peter,  you  know  me  to  be 
an  obstinate  man." 

He  paused,  and  Molly,  who  was  enjoying  this 
open  declaration  of  war  immensely,  took  up  her 
cue,  fortified  by  her  proximity  to  her  dream- 
monger. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "I  know  I  won't  do,  and 
shall  be  a  hell  of  a  guy  as  a  Duchess,  but  that's  his 
affair,  isn't  it?" 

"You  are  putting  me  in  a  very  awkward  position," 
hazarded  the  wretched  Peter. 

"Not  at  all,"  Henry  rejoined.  "It's  got  nothing 
to  do  with  you." 

"But,  Miss  .  .  .  Miss  .  .  ."  The  Professor 
hesitated. 

"Shine,"  said  Molly.  "I  expect  you'd  like  to 
know  the  worst  about  me.  I've  been  a  shop-girl, 
and  my  father  is  a  cabinet-maker,  and  I'll  love 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Henry  till  the  cows  come  home."  She  felt  very 
reckless. 

"The  whole  thing  appears  to  me "  began 

Peter. 

"Nobody  cares,"  said  Henry,  "how  the  matter 
appears  to  you.  If  I  like  a  cabinet-maker  for  a 
father-in-law,  what  does  it  matter?" 

"When  your  own  father  was  a  Cabinet  Minister," 
said  the  Professor  stiffly.  "I  am  bound  to  say, 
though,  it  is  a  very  unpleasant  task.  .  .  ." 

The  Duke  took  Molly's  arm  and  they  went  to  the 
doorway. 

"It  is  a  common  mistake  with  people  that  they 
are  bound  to  say  things,  Peter,"  he  said.  "There 
are  just  two  accidents  that  will  stop  this  marriage; 
one  is  if  I  am  run  over  by  a  motor-bus  and  killed, 
the  other  is  the  end  of  the  world.  Meanwhile,  we 
are  going  to  the  Pictures." 

And  they  disappeared  down  the  corridor  and  out 
of  the  building,  while  Molly,  realizing  that  this  was 
only  the  third  time  she  had  passed  through  the  gates 
with  the  lions  on  the  top,  felt  convinced  that  by 
some  extraordinary  magic  she  must  have  been  turned 
into  one  of  the  characters  in  her  silly  books.  The 
Duke,  too,  felt  unaccountably  gay  in  the  knowledge 
that  the  first  line  of  the  enemy's  defenses  had  been 
rushed  and  taken  by  storm. 

Meanwhile  Peter,  alone  in  the  study,  his  head  a 
perfect  whirl  of  amazement  and  perturbation,  seized 
the  telephone  and  fell  back  on  his  heavy  guns,  by 
asking  in  a  hoarse  voice  for  a  trunk  call  to  Elton 
Wick,  which  was  the  village  where  stood  the  Duke's 

116 


WIGS    ON    THE    GREEN 

country  mansion,  Wynninghame  Towers.  Octavia, 
he  felt  instinctively,  would  know  what  to  do. 

But,  failing  to  get  through,  he  rushed  for  a  Brad- 
shaw,  and  ten  minutes  later  was  in  a  taxi,  speeding 
for  Waterloo  and  help. 

At  the  same  moment  Molly  was  squeezing  Hen- 
ry's hand  at  a  particularly  thrilling  presentment  of 
the  pursuit  of  a  horse-thief  by  a  crowd  of  curiously 
handsome  cow-punchers,  and  Henry  was  finding  that 
the  anticipation  of  things  is  always  worse  than  the 
reality. 


117 


CHAPTER   X 

LADY   BLAKE   GOES  TO   TOWN 

PETER  gazed  out  of  the  window,  as  the  train  drew 
him  swiftly  toward  Southampton  Water,  with  an 
expression  on  his  face  such  as  a  bulldog  wears  when 
it  sees  a  rabbit  disappear  into  a  hole.  The  dog  is 
utterly  mystified,  and  so  was  the  Professor.  He  had 
seen,  of  course,  at  a  glance  that  Molly  was  a  beau- 
tiful girl,  and  since  to  him  womanhood  was  merely 
a  question  of  samples,  he  could  have  understood  and 
even  sympathized  with  a  passion  that  dared  every- 
thing in  order  to  consummate  its  desire.  But  with 
Henry  this  idea  was  out  of  the  question.  It  was 
perfectly  true,  as  the  Professor  had  said,  that  he 
had  no  idea  of  the  difference  between  a  frock  from 
Redfern's  and  an  overall.  Therefore  he  was  not  in 
love  with  Molly  in  the  ordinary  or  Octavian  sense. 
How,  then?  Henry  was  not  the  kind  of  man  to 
conceal  anything.  If  he  had  known  the  girl  for 
long  and  had  slipped  into  one  of  those  passionless 
friendships  which  finally  make  men  feel  it  is  their 
duty  to  marry,  instead  of  allowing  the  thing  to  rest 
on  the  foundations  upon  which  it  had  been  built, 
Peter  felt  sure  that  everybody  would  have  known 
of  the  affair  from  start  to  finish. 

What  conceivable  motive,  then,   could  he   have 
118 


LADY  BLAKE  GOES  TO  TOWN 

had?  The  Professor  drew  a  handkerchief  from  his 
pocket  and  mopped  his  forehead.  Perfectly  baldly, 
the  story  he  had  got  to  tell  Octavia  was  that  he  had 
left  Henry  apparently  sane  and  healthy  one  minute, 
and  found  him  engaged  to  be  married  the  next. 
What  is  more,  he  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  would 
be  held  responsible  for  it.  Whenever  the  Duke  got 
into  any  trouble  which  caused  Octavia  the  annoy- 
ance of  having  to  explain  things  away  among  her 
friends,  she  invariably  attacked  Peter,  who  was  al- 
ways about  with  his  friend,  as  if  he  had  been  in  a 
position  to  prevent  the  catastrophe.  That  is  why, 
as  his  train  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  Elton  Wick, 
the  unfortunate  Professor  mopped  his  brow  with 
his  handkerchief  at  more  frequent  intervals,  and 
almost  groaned  aloud  as  he  thought  of  the  hopeless 
inadequacy  of  the  tale  he  must  tell  to  Lady  Blake. 

"He  must  be  mad,"  he  muttered  finally  as  the 
train  came  to  a  standstill  and  he  caught  sight  of 
Lady  Blake's  car,  with  Mary  Blake  sitting  at  the 
wheel. 

"Welcome,  Peter,"  she  said,  as  he  got  in  beside 
her.  "I  brought  the  car  down  myself  because  I 
thought  you'd  like  to  see  me.  Why  have  you 
come  ?" 

The  car  started  to  wind  up  the  hill  toward  Wyn- 
ninghame  Towers,  and  the  Processor's  courage 
seemed  to  ooze  out  as  he  caught  sight  of  the  chim- 
neys peeping  over  the  trees. 

"Why  did  I  come?"  he  echoed.  "Because  I 
wanted  to  see  you,  of  course." 

"Shall  I  tell  you  what  you  ought  to  be  made 
119 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

to  do?'*  she  said.  "You  ought  to  write  out  a  hun- 
dred times  every  day,  'I  am  bald.'  I  heard  all  about 
your  behavior  in  Paris,  Peter;  you  are  a  thoroughly 
undignified  old  man." 

"Very  well,  my  dear,"  he  returned  meekly.  "How 
is  your  mother?" 

"Oh  I  she's  rather  upset  about  things  in  general." 

"Damn  1"  muttered  Peter.  "Of  course,  when  I've 
got  the  plates  ripped  out  of  my  keel,  I  strike  a 
gale.  What's  she  worried  about?"  he  asked  aloud. 

"Gerald.  Haven't  you  heard?  He's  engaged 
to  be  married.  Mother  says  that  if  you  get  married 
to  the  wrong  person  you  might  just  as  well  be  a 
murderer  and  a  forger  and  an  anarchist,  because  if 
your  wife's  wrong  nobody  will  notice  little  things 
like  that." 

The  car  turned  into  the  drive  and  Peter  began 
to  wish  that  he  had  left  Henry  to  his  fate  and 
washed  his  hands  of  the  whole  business.  However, 
it  was  too  late  now,  for  there  was  Lady  Blake  on 
the  steps  and  three  minutes  later  he  was  sitting  alone 
with  her  in  the  great  morning-room  of  Wynning- 
hame  Towers  that  always  seemed  to  stand  for  the 
acme  of  comfort  combined  with  the  rigidity  of  aris- 
tocratic convention  which  was  bread  and  meat  to 
Octavia. 

"Well,  Peter,"  she  began,  "I  got  your  wire. 
What  are  you  running  away  from?  Women  or 
debts?" 

"Neither,"  answered  the  Professor,  and  added 
weakly,  "how  are  you,  Octavia  ?" 

"I'm  the  most  harassed  woman  in  England,  Pe- 
120 


LADY  BLAKE  GOES  TO  TOWN 

ter,  if  you  wish  to  know.  What  do  you  think  has 
happened?  Gerald  has  got  himself  engaged  to  be 
married  to  a  tight-rope  walker.  I  don't  know  which 
is  worse,  to  be  like  Gerald  and  have  no  sense  of 
decency,  or  like  poor  Henry  and  have  no  sense  at  all. 
I  shall  have  to  take  Gerald  up  to  Wynninghame 
House  and  Henry  will  have  to  deal  with  the  mat- 
ter in  his  capacity  as  head  of  the  family." 

"Boys  will  be  boys,"  said  Peter,  feebly,  begin- 
ning to  think  that  catastrophe  had  him  firmly  in  its 

grip- 

"Thank  you,  Peter,  for  being  so  helpful,"  re- 
marked Octavia  crisply. 

"I  can't  help  it,  Octavia,"  wailed  the  Professor. 
"I'm  the  most  harassed  man  in  England." 

"What's  the  matter  with  you?" 

"Henry  is  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  shop- 
girl." 

Lady  Octavia  sat  down  suddenly  and  stared  at 
him. 

"Is  this  a  new  kind  of  wit?"  she  asked. 

The  Professor  was  annoyed. 

"I  don't  go  a  hundred-mile  journey  in  order  to 
make  a  joke,"  he  snapped. 

She  looked  at  him  curiously. 

"Did  you  say,"  she  said,  "that  Henry  was  en- 
gaged to  be  married  to  a  shop-girl?" 

"I  did,"  said  Peter. 

Octavia  sat  quite  still  for  a  few  minutes,  letting 
this  fact  become  real  to  her.  When  she  spoke,  her 
remark  was  entirely  typical  of  the  woman. 

"Is  the  engagement  published?"  she  asked. 

121 


"He  only  did  it  this  morning,"  said  the  Professor. 

"Then  there  is  some  sort  of  hope!  Have  you 
seen  her?" 

"For  about  three  minutes." 

"Is  she  an  adventuress?" 

"She  is  pretty,  certainly;  I  suppose  that  is  an 
essential  in  adventuresses." 

Octavia  tapped  her  fingers  on  the  edge  of  the 
chair.  She  spoke  impersonally  to  the  fireplace. 

"It's  always  the  way  with  these  ascetics;  when 
they  do  get  a  disease  they  die  of  it." 

"But,"  said  Peter  slowly,  "I  am  perfectly  con- 
vinced that  Henry  is  not  in  love  with  her." 

"Not  in  love  with  her?" 

"That  was  the  impression  I  received." 

"Then  why ?"  The  sentence  remained  un- 
finished. 

Peter  rose  and  went  over  to  take  up  his  stand 
on  the  hearthrug.  He  always  felt  safer  there. 

"The  plain  facts  of  the  case  are  these,  Octavia," 
he  began.  "At  ten-thirty  this  morning  I  left  Henry 
overfeeding  a  lizard;  at  eleven-twenty-five  he  intro- 
duced a  girl  to  me  as  the  future  Duchess  of  Wyn- 
ninghame." 

"Did  he  produce  any  explanation?" 

"None  whatever.  He  anticipated  opposition  to 
the  marriage,  and  remarked  that  there  was  only  one 
thing  that  would  stop  it,  and  that  thing  was  the  end 
of  the  world.  The  girl  remarked  that  she  realized 
that  she  would  look  a  ...  er  ...  hell  of  a  guy 
as  a  Duchess,  and  announced  it  as  her  intention 
to  lavish  her  affection  upon  Henry  until  the — cows 

122 


LADY  BLAKE  GOES  TO  TOWN 

came  home.  Then  they  went  away  together  to  a 
cinematograph  performance." 

Octavia  listened  to  this  recital  with  a  frowning 
conviction  that  there  was  nothing  left  in  the  world 
that  would  ever  cause  her  any  surprise,  and  when 
the  Professor  stopped  speaking  she  looked  him 
gravely  in  the  face  for  a  few  moments.  At  last, 
fixing  him  with  her  eyes,  she  said  in  a  low  tone: 

"Do  you  think,  Peter — that  Henry  is  mad?" 

But  Peter,  who  had  a  deeper  insight  into  things 
than  Octavia  could  ever  compass,  shook  his  head. 

"I  think  he  is  worse,  Octavia.  I  think  he  is  a 
perfectly  honest  man." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  don't  quite  know,  myself,"  he  returned,  "but 
Henry  has  never  been  in  tune  with  the  world.  He 
has  cultivated  himself  intensively.  I  have  a  feel- 
ing that  somewhere  behind  this  affair  we  should  find 
an  overdeveloped  sense  of  honor." 

"Do  you  mean  he  is  endeavoring  to  make  things 
all  right  for  a  woman  who  has  been  his  mistress?" 

Peter  laughed. 

"Henry  a  man  with  a  mistress!"  he  said.  "No, 
no,  Octavia — I  don't  mean  anything  definite,  only 
I  remember  Henry  saying  to  me  once,  'If  ever  I 
do  anything  grotesque,  try  to  realize  that  some- 
where behind  that  is  my  theory  of  living.' ' 

Octavia  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"What  are  we  to  do?"  she  asked.  "That  is  the 
question." 

"Indeed,  yes,"  answered  the  Professor.  "Sisy- 
123 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

phus  himself  had  an  easier  task  than  breaking  down 
the  illusions  of  middle-aged  men." 

"Don't  make  silly  epigrams,  Peter,"  snapped  Oc- 
tavia.  "What  on  earth  induced  you  to  allow  Henry 
to  get  into  a  mess  like  this?" 

"How  could  I  help  it,  Octavia?  I  can't  possibly 
keep  pace  with  people  who  get  engaged  at  that  rate." 

Octavia  was  silent  for  a  few  moments. 

"Did  you  say  she  was  pretty?"  she  asked  sud- 
denly. 

"Yes.     Why?" 

"I  was  wondering  which  of  us  would  have  to  go 
and  buy  her  off;  it's  no  manner  of  use  your  trying 
it  if  she's  a  pretty  woman." 

Peter  felt  immensely  relieved. 

"No,"  he  said  with  emphasis;  "certainly  not." 

"I  shall  have  to  do  it  myself,"  said  Octavia  with 
a  sigh.  "The  sooner  the  better,  I  suppose.  I'm 
beginning  to  think,  Peter,  that  this  ridiculous  ex- 
pedition of  Henry's  to  the  South  Seas  is  going  to 
fall  out  very  well." 

"By  George,  yesl"  said  the  Professor,  who  had 
forgotten  all  about  the  golden  toad  in  the  catastro- 
phe of  the  last  few  hours. 

"Do  you  mind  ringing  the  bell?"  asked  Octavia. 
"I'll  find  out  the  trains  to  town  and  go  up  this  after- 
noon. After  all,  nothing  is  published.  Perhaps  it 
isn't  so  dreadful  as  it  looks." 

Inspection  showed  that  the  next  train  they  could 
catch  did  not  leave  until  six  o'clock,  and  Peter  felt 
a  great  deal  less  gloomy  when  he  set  out  with  Mary 
on  a  walk  round  the  grounds  before  tea. 

124 


"Why  is  mother  going  up  to  town?"  she  asked, 
as  she  stopped  at  an  old  oak  to  show  him  where 
she  had  smashed  the  lamps  of  the  car  the  week 
before. 

"Your  mother  and  I  have  decided  to  elope,"  an- 
swered Peter  gravely. 

Mary  sighed. 

"I'm  not  in  short  frocks  still,  Peter,"  she  said, 
"and  I  can  quite  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
word  'private.'  But  tell  me,  it  isn't  anything  to  do 
with  Uncle  Henry,  is  it?" 

"Why  do  you  want  to  know?" 

"Because,"  said  Mary  slowly,  "I  think  Uncle 
Henry  is  the  best  and  finest  man  I  know,  and  if 
anything  happened  to  him  I  should  be  very  un- 
happy." 

"More  unhappy  than  if  something  happened  to 
me?"  urged  the  Professor  whimsically. 

"So  many  things  have  happened  to  you,  Peter, 
but  nothing  has  ever  happened  to  Uncle  Henry — 
that  makes  all  the  difference." 

And,  after  all,  the  wisdom  of  nineteen  is  often 
as  much  to  the  point  as  the  wisdom  of  our  elders 
and  betters. 

"You  needn't  be  afraid,"  said  the  Professor,  with 
a  vision  of  Lady  Blake's  inexorable  face,  backed  up 
by  her  very  capable  check-book. 

But  for  all  that,  Mary  was  not  satisfied,  though 
she  made  no  further  reference  to  the  subject  and 
endured  quite  good-naturedly  Peter's  rather  childish 
humor  at  the  tea-table.  The  Professor  could  never 
get  it  out  of  his  head  that  she  was  anything  but 

"5 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

the  pig-tailed  ragamuffin  he  had  carried  round  the 
lawn  on  his  shoulders  ten  years  ago.  A  decade, 
when  one  has  passed  five  of  them,  is  essentially  a 
thing  to  be  ignored.  And  youth,  not  uncommonly, 
begins  putting  its  spoke  into  the  wheels  of  age  long 
before  it  has  been  noticed  about  the  place  at  all. 

Meanwhile,  Lady  Blake  and  Peter  went  up  to 
town. 


126 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE   DUCHESS   OF   WYNNINGHAME 

WHEN  once  she  had  taken  a  thing  in  hand  it  was 
characteristic  of  Octavia  to  go  straight  for  her  goal 
with  as  little  finesse  as  the  problem  demanded,  and 
the  buying-off  of  a  shop-girl  appeared  to  her  one  or 
the  simplest  undertakings  that  had  ever  come  her 
way  during  a  life  largely  occupied  in  messing  up 
other  people's  affairs.  She  knew  Henry's  obstinate 
nature,  but  she  calculated  that  he  would  be  just  as 
determined  to  go  on  his  ridiculous  expedition  as  to 
persist  in  his  ridiculous  match,  and  she  saw  a  very 
good  opening  for  making  the  one  militate  against 
the  other.  Thus  she  was  not  as  disturbed  as  one 
might  have  expected  in  the  circumstances,  especially 
as  Society  had  had  no  time,  so  far,  to  learn  of 
the  Duke's  indiscretion.  As  for  Peter,  the  joy  of 
finding  himself  unexpectedly  left  out  of  the  cam- 
paign made  him  almost  disgustingly  cheerful  as  a 
taxi  landed  him  once  more  at  the  doors  of  Wyn- 
ninghame  House. 

There  was  no  sign  of  Henry  as  they  went  up  the 
broad  staircase  and  into  the  study,  but  scarcely  had 
the  Professor  shut  the  large  doors  when  the  smaller 
one  below  the  fireplace  opened,  and  Molly  herself 
came  in.  Peter  gave  an  almost  imperceptible  nod 
in  answer  to  Octavia's  unspoken  question,  and  re- 
ceived in  reply  a  telegraphic  signal  to  leave  them 

127 


alone.  This,  with  as  few  words  as  possible,  he 
did. 

Of  course,  Molly  knew  at  once  that  this  was  one 
of  Henry's  relations,  probably  summoned  in  a  hur- 
ry. She  felt  a  little  flutter  of  excitement  as  it  ap- 
peared that  she  was  going  to  be  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  cross  swords  with  her  own  sex  in  single 
combat.  She  would  far  rather  fight  under  these 
conditions  with  Lady  Octavia  than  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Henry.  Besides,  she  held  a  trump  card 
which  she  was  determined  to  play  only  at  the  last 
moment. 

Octavia  entered  the  lists  at  once  with  no  pre- 
liminary fanfare. 

"You  are  engaged  to  be  married  to  Henry,  I 
believe?"  she  asked. 

Molly  nodded. 

"I  am  his  sister,"  went  on  Lady  Blake  evenly. 
"Of  course,  you  do  not  expect  me  to  approve  of 
the  marriage?" 

Molly  smoothed  out  her  skirt  and  forced  her 
voice  to  remain  steady. 

"You  are  Lady  Blake,"  she  said.  "I  remember 
the  Duke  saying  you  were  an  overwhelmer." 

"It  always  annoys  people  who  cannot  take  care 
of  themselves,"  said  Octavia,  "when  other  people 
attempt  to  see  that  they  don't  get  into  trouble.  Of 
course,"  she  went  on,  "this  engagement  cannot  go 
on;  I  will  give  you  credit  for  enough  sense  to  see 
that.  At  the  same  time,  it  appears  that  Henry 
has  ...  er  ...  put  himself  under  an  obligation 
to  you,  to  say  the  least  of  it.  I  am  sure  you  will 

128 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

agree  with  me  that  that  obligation  can  be  best  dis- 
charged on  a  cash  basis?" 

She  talked  to  Molly,  who  was  standing  at  the 
corner  of  the  desk,  while  she  herself  sat  in  the  big 
armchair  by  the  fire,  as  if  she  were  a  mistress  dis- 
charging a  servant.  Molly  said  nothing. 

"The  only  question  is,"  Octavia  was  saying,  "how 
much?" 

Molly  looked  hard  at  her  with  real  astonishment 
in  her  great  brown  eyes. 

"Do  you  really  think,  Lady  Blake,"  she  said, 
"that  people  are  like  that?" 

Octavia  was  at  a  loss.  The  girl  seemed  cleverer 
than  she  had  imagined.  She  gave  a  hard  little  laugh. 

"Oh,  come,"  she  said.  "I  know  what  you  are 
going  to  say  to  me.  That  you  love  him,  and  true 
love  is  above  all  else,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  But 
need  we  waste  our  time  over  that?  If  you  were 
really  fond  of  Henry  you  would  see  that  the  last 
thing  you  should  do  would  be  to  marry  him." 

Molly's  heart  gave  a  little  jump  of  fear  as  Octavia 
said  this.  Was  it  not  the  very  thing  she  feared  most, 
that  she  would  not  be  able  to  make  him  happy  and 
would  only  succeed  in  making  his  whole  life  a  burden 
of  social  pin-pricks?  But  again  the  whole  wealth  of 
her  love  surged  up  in  her,  and  she  put  it  out  of  her 
mind.  If  Henry  had  cared  for  Society-life  and  the 
conventions  of  his  class  it  might  have  been  different. 
Luckily  he  did  not,  and  to  Molly  he  was  simply  her 
dream-monger,  for  whom  she  would  gladly  die  or  do 
any  of  the  myriad  things  in  life  which  are  worse  than 
death.  She  followed  her  instinct,  trusting  that  it 

129 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

would  not  cheat  her,  and  knowing  anyway  that  she 
had  no  other  guide  to  follow.  Bermondsey  is  not  a 
university  in  which  one  can  take  a  degree  in  any  of 
the  subtler  arts,  but  a  good  instinct  at  any  rate  has 
less  sophistry  to  meet  there  than  in  Belgravia. 

"So  I  think,"  she  heard  Octavia  saying,  "we  will 
cut  all  that  out  and  see  if  we  cannot  settle  the  busi- 
ness in  the  least  possible  time.  It  cannot  be  pleasant 
to  either  of  us." 

"No,"  said  Molly  softly. 

"Well,  you're  a  pretty  girl,"  returned  Octavia 
blandly,  "and  you've  made  a  fool  of  Henry,  which 
is  a  far  cleverer  thing  to  do  than  you  imagine,  for 
he  doesn't  care  at  all  about  women,  as  a  rule.  You 
see,  I  admit  you've  been  clever,  and  clever  people 
are  worth  their  money." 

She  felt  from  Molly's  silence  that  she  was  getting 
on  rather  well;  evidently  the  girl  was  not  going  to 
storm  and  rave  in  an  endeavor  to  put  the  price 
up. 

"What  is  your  name  ?"  she  asked  pleasantly,  with- 
drawing her  check-book. 

"The  Duchess  of  Wynninghame,"  said  Molly  in 
a  soft,  caressing  voice. 

It  was  her  trump  card,  and  she  played  it  with  the 
dramatic  instinct  that  is  in  all  women. 

"A  little  premature,  aren't  you?"  asked  Octavia. 

"No,"  answered  Molly,  with  the  feeling  of  a 
buccaneer  about  to  fire  a  mine.  "You  see,  we  were 
married  an  hour  and  a  half  ago." 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Lady  Octavia,  she  knew 
how  to  behave.  She  never  doubted  for  an  instant 

130 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

the  truth  of  Molly's  statement,  for  she  had  wit 
enough  to  perceive  the  genuine  when  it  was  laid  be- 
fore her.  She  rose  and  faced  her. 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  "that  I  have  been  so  rude 
as  to  sit  while  you  were  standing.  I  dare  say 
your  Grace  will  forgive  my  mistake — in  the  circum- 
stances." 

There  was  not  a  shade  of  malice  or  irony  in  her 
tone.  Lady  Octavia's  code  told  her  that  Molly  was 
now  her  superior  in  rank,  and  she  behaved  to  her 
a«s  she  had  been  taught  to  behave.  The  ridiculous 
side  of  it  she  would  never  have  been  able  to  under- 
stand. But  Molly,  who  saw  in  her  words  only  a 
rather  dignified  and  fine  amende,  held  out  her  hand 
impulsively  as  she  recognized  one  of  the  possessions 
which  Lady  Blake  had  and  which  she  knew  she  could 
never  hope  to  acquire. 

But  Octavia  shook  her  head. 

"No,"  she  said.  "Henry  has  made  you  his 
Duchess  and  you  have  been  too  clever  for  me — but 
we  are  enemies,  and  we  shall  always  be  enemies." 

"Surely  not  ?"  said  Molly.     "Why  ?" 

"I  will  tell  you,"  answered  Octavia.  "I  know 
nothing  whatever  about  you,  and  for  all  I  know  to 
the  contrary  you  may  be  the  nicest  girl  in  the  world, 
but  you  are  not  of  our  caste,  and  when  I  have  said 
that  I  have  said  everything.  It  is  an  unpleasant 
thing  for  me  to  say,  for  we  do  not  talk  of  such  things, 
as  a  rule,  but  it  is  an  affair  that  means  so  much  to 
me  that  I  shall  not  rest  until  I  destroy  this  marriage." 

And  by  her  tones  Molly  realized  that  she  had 
said  her  last  word  as  far  as  that  was  concerned. 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Yet,  curiously  enough,  Octavia's  iron  pride  was  a 
matter  for  envy  to  her  antagonist,  who  saw  in  it 
another  sign  of  all  the  things  that  she  would  never 
be — and  again  the  dreadful  fear  that  her  love  would 
not  be  strong  enough  to  break  down  these  barriers 
which  were  already  rising  about  her  like  the  heads 
of  Hydra  swept  across  her  mind  and  left  her  white 
and  trembling  before  Octavia. 

And  this  lady,  in  her  foolish  wisdom,  thought  that 
the  Duchess  was  white  with  rage,  so  that  the  passage 
of  arms,  short  though  it  had  been,  had  shown  the 
weakness  and  strength  of  each  party  as  under  the 
glare  of  a  searchlight.  The  worst  feature  of  battle 
is  that  even  chinks  in  the  victor's  armor  are  apt  to  be 
exposed  during  the  conflict. 

Molly  had  nothing  to  say  to  Octavia  in  answer  to 
her  bare  statement  of  facts.  Truth  to  tell,  Lady 
Blake,  without  knowing  it,  had  pierced  the  heel  of 
Achilles.  It  was  this  question  of  caste  which  was 
already  beginning  to  torment  Molly  with  its  un- 
reasonable disabilities,  and  which  was  to  torment  her 
a  thousand  times  more  than  she  imagined.  Curi- 
ously enough,  she  felt  very  little  elated  at  being  a 
Duchess;  she  would  far  rather  have  been  Mrs. 
Wynninghame,  of  Stockwell.  That  would  have 
meant  something.  To  be  mistress  of  Wynninghame 
House  seemed  to  make  her  more  of  a  curiosity  than 
anything  else.  Wisely,  she  did  not  attempt  to  de- 
fend herself  against  Lady  Octavia,  but  simply  nodded 
and  said,  "Yes,  it  will  be  very  difficult  for  me." 

Octavia,  who  had  expected  anger,  was  surprised 
and  in  her  turn  dumb.  Thus  it  was  a  relief  for  them 

132 


both  when  Henry  appeared  quietly  in  the  doorway 
and  came  into  the  room. 

Now  Henry  had  not  the  slightest  idea  that  he  had 
entered  at  a  dramatic  moment,  or  that,  in  his  hurried 
marriage,  he  had  done  anything  more  than  an  unusual 
thing.  He  had  put  it  to  himself  that  anything  in 
the  nature  of  an  engagement  would  involve  a  great 
deal  of  argument  with  Octavia,  which  he  desired  to 
avoid,  and  a  great  many  explanations  to  Society, 
which  he  was  not  prepared  to  give;  whereas  a  fait 
accompli  and  a  Duchess  had  to  be  taken  more  or 
less  for  granted. 

Octavia  was  not  one  to  mask  her  guns. 

"I  came  up,"  she  said,  "the  moment  I  heard  of 
your  intended  marriage,  in  order  to  stop  it;  it  ap- 
pears that  I  am  too  late." 

The  Duke  pulled  out  his  watch. 

"By  an  hour  and  three-quarters,  Octavia,"  he 
answered  cheerfully. 

"You  have  been  very  quick,"  she  said  dryly. 

"The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,"  returned  the 
Duke,  "happens  to  be  a  personal  friend  of  mine,  and 
special  licenses  are  really  quite  easy  to  get." 

"Thank  heaven,"  snapped  Octavia,  "archbishops 
do  not  gossip !" 

She  turned  to  Molly. 

"I  wonder  whether  you  would  allow  me  ten 
minutes'  conversation  alone  with  your  husband?" 
she  said. 

Molly  looked  at  Henry,  and  with  a  little  nod  left 
the  room. 

"Henry,"  said  Octavia  suddenly,  when  the  door 
133 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

had  closed  behind  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame,  "I 
think  it  is  just  three  weeks  ago  that  you  told  me 
you  never  intended  to  marry." 

The  Duke  nodded. 

"You  must  have  met  this  girl  since  then?" 

Henry  nodded  again  and  reached  for  the  cigar- 
ettes. 

"You  don't  mind  if  I  smoke,  Octavia?"  he  said. 
"To  be  perfectly  accurate,  I  met  my  wife  before 
then." 

"Oh!     Where?" 

"At  the  Zoo,  Octavia.  To  be  precise,  in  the 
Snake  House." 

"Very  fitting,"  remarked  Lady  Blake  bitterly. 
"What  is  her  father?" 

"I  really  forget,"  answered  the  Duke.  "He 
makes  something,  which  is  more  than  I  do." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  do,"  returned  his  sister.  "You 
make  trouble — wholesale." 

Henry  said  nothing,  and  she  continued: 

"For  some  extraordinary  reason  you  have  fallen 
in  love  with  this  girl."  Henry  was  thankful  she 
had  not  put  it  as  a  question.  "Well,  I  hope  you 
understand  that  you  are  dragging  the  family  in  the 
dirt." 

The  Duke  rose  slowly  to  his  feet  and  threw  away 
his  cigarette.  A  curious  light  smoldered  in  his  gray 
eyes. 

"Octavia,"  he  said,  "I  think  we  had  better  under- 
stand one  another.  I  do  not  expect  you  to  sympa- 
thize with  my  marriage,  and  had  you  not  come  here  I 
should  not  have  attempted  to  talk  to  you  on  the 

134 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

subject.  Now  you  are  here,  I  wish  you  to  under- 
stand that  I  am  not  open  to  argument  of  any  kind." 

Octavia  gave  a  little  gesture  of  disgust. 

"A  grubby  girl,"  she  said,  "in  a  ready-made 
frock." 

"An  hour  and  three-quarters  ago,  Octavia,"  he 
returned,  "that  grubby  girl  became  Duchess  of 
Wynninghame.  I  cannot  allow  the  Duchess  of 
Wynninghame  to  be  insulted.  If  you  are  not  able 
to  refrain  from  telling  me  that  she  is  a  disgrace  to 
the  family  or  that  her  clothes  do  not  meet  with 
your  approval,  I  must  ask  you  to  leave  the  house,  and 
not  to  enter  it  again  until  you  are  ready  to  treat  its 
mistress  as  she  should  be  treated." 

Lady  Octavia  had  not  been  prepared  for  this. 
She  had  expected  Henry  to  be  vague,  even  apologetic, 
but  that  he  would  ever  threaten  to  turn  her  out  of 
the  house  she  would  never  have  imagined.  It  was 
a  new  side  of  his  character. 

"Are  we  not  getting  a  little  heroic,  Henry?"  she 
said  softly. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  fancy  our  class  of  people  become  heroic  rather 
too  seldom,"  he  said.  "But,  however  that  may  be, 
in  this  matter,  Octavia,  I  can't  be  bothered  with  you." 

Octavia  said  nothing.  There  seemed  no  answer 
to  this.  During  her  career  Lady  Blake  had  met 
with  a  great  deal  of  opposition  and  had  made  a 
great  many  enemies,  but  she  had  never  been  ignored. 
There  is  no  knock-out  blow  which  is  so  effective  when 
used  for  the  first  time,  and  Octavia  cast  wildly  round 
in  her  mind  for  some  new  line  of  attack;  she  was 

135 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

still  silent  when  the  Professor  returned.  Peter 
noticed  at  once  that  Octavia  seemed  somehow  to 
have  lost  her  buoyancy.  His  heart  sank.  What 
new  disaster  had  supervened? 

"I  was  just  telling  Octavia,"  he  heard  the  Duke 
saying,  "that  I  cannot  have  her  abusing  my  wife; 
it  doesn't  do,  Peter." 

"Your  wife?"  The  Professor  almost  shouted 
the  words. 

"Don't  make  such  a  noise,  Peter.  Yes!  I  told 
you  we  did  not  believe  in  long  engagements.  We 
were  married  a  couple  of  hours  since." 

Octavia  rose  and  took  a  step  or  two  toward  the 
Professor. 

"You  are  behaving  like  a  child,  Henry,"  she  said. 
"A  thing  like  this  cannot  be  hushed  up  and  ignored." 

"Who  wishes  to  hush  it  up,  except  you  and  Peter  ?" 
said  the  Duke. 

Octavia's  lips  set  in  a  firm  line. 

"You  cannot  present  that  girl  to  Society  as  your 
wife,"  she  said. 

"Damn  Society!"  returned  the  Duke.  "I  beg 
your  pardon,  Octavia,  but  that  is  my  opinion." 

"You  cannot  get  rid  of  it  by  swearing  at  it." 

The  Duke  swore  again,  softly. 

"It's  utterly  sickening,"  he  said.  "I  don't  wish  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  Society.  It  annoys  me  and 
it  despises  me ;  yet  it's  always  in  my  way.  I  cannot 
walk  into  the  street  without  my  hat  but  Society  pre 
sumes  to  tell  me  I  must  put  it  on.  I  have  even  heard 
Society  say  that  it  is  absurd  for  a  Duke  to  take  an 
interest  in  lizards.  And  now  Society  tells  me  my 

136 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

wife  is  all  wrong.  What  have  I  done  to  it  that  it 
should  always  be  getting  in  my  way?  I  don't  mind 
Society  thinking  I'm  a  lunatic,  but  I  do  object  to  its 
regarding  itself  as  my  keeper." 

Octavia  looked  at  him  with  a  compassionate  smile. 

"Now  listen  to  me,  Henry,"  she  said.  "What- 
ever you  may  think  about  Society,  it  will  always  be 
with  you,  unless  you  go  and  live  in  a  balloon.  It 
will  not  accept  that  girl  as  the  Duchess  of  Wynning- 
hame,  and  that  is  a  fact  which  you  cannot  ignore. 
What  is  more,  to  anybody  who  has  not  completely 
lost  his  head  it  will  appear  perfectly  obvious  that 
she  has  caught  you  with  her  pretty  face  and  demure 
ways.  That  is  the  worst  of  growing  to  your  age 
without  knocking  about  the  world.  You  have  not 
been  in  the  habit  of  falling  in  love,  so  you  don't 
know  the  proper  women  to  fall  in  love  with.  As  I 
have  always  told  you,  these  things  happen  through 
lack  of  organization.  Society  will  call  your  wife  an 
adventuress,  and  neither  I  nor  Peter  will  be  able  to 
deny  it!" 

The  Duke  walked  over  to  the  doors  and  threw 
them  open. 

"Good  evening,  Octavia  1"  he  said.  "I  need  not 
repeat  what  I  said  to  you  just  now.  I  trust  you  will 
not  be  here  when  I  return  unless  you  are  ready  to 
respect  the  foolish  foibles  of  a  husband,  which  make 
it  impossible  for  him  to  listen  to  people  calling  his 
wife  an  adventuress." 

He  went  out  and  closed  the  doors. 

"Damnation  1"  said  the  Professor.  "Henry  starts 
an  avalanche  on  the  roll  and  thinks  he  can  stop  it 

137 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

from  falling  with  his  eighteenth-century  manners. 
What  in  Heaven's  name  are  we  to  do?" 

Octavia  shook  her  head. 

"In  the  first  place,"  she  said,  "the  girl  is  a  great 
deal  cleverer  than  I  imagined  she  would  be.  She 
knows  that  so  long  as  she  holds  her  tongue  and  looks 
innocent  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  deal  with  her." 

For  a  long  time  there  was  silence  between  them. 
Octavia  played  with  her  gloves  on  the  table  and 
tapped  out  a  tune  with  one  of  her  Parisian  heels  on 
the  carpet.  Suddenly  a  slight  smile  spread  across 
her  face. 

"Peter!"  she  asked  softly,  "is  this  island  in  the 
Pacific  a  place  where  a  woman  could  go?" 

"Certainly  not,"  he  returned;  "it's  simply  a 
swamp." 

"Then  Henry  will  either  have  to  give  up  the 
expedition  and  look  a  fool,  or  else  he'll  have  to  leave 
his  wife  behind." 

"He  will  not  give  up  the  expedition.  I've  never 
seen  him  so  obstinate  about  anything  in  my  life  as  he 
is  about  that  mythical  toad." 

"When  is  the  expedition  to  start?" 

"Nominally  in  a  week — but  now " 

Octavia  checked  him. 

"It  must  start  in  a  week,  Peter,"  she  said. 

"And  if  it  does?" 

"Given  the  absence  of  Henry,  I  have  brought  off 
more  difficult  propositions  than  the  dethroning  of 
the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame." 

She  went  to  a  mirror  and  adjusted  her  hat. 

"I  anrgoing  back  to  the  Towers  now,  Peter.     The 
138 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

only  thing  you  can  do  is  to  see  that  as  few  people  as 
possible  know  before  the  yacht  sails.  One  can  dis- 
pose of  rumors.  I  do  not  think  Henry  will  publish 
the  marriage.  I  do  not  think  it  will  enter  his  head 
if  no  one  puts  it  there."  She  turned  in  the  doorway 
as  Peter  came  up  behind  her.  "The  Dukedom  of 
Wynninghame  is  too  old  to  be  allowed  to  be  thrown 
in  the  gutter,"  she  said.  And  Peter  saw  behind  the 
words  an  apology  for  the  cruelty  which  he  realized 
she  was  prepared  to  use  against  this  girl  whom  she 
hardly  knew. 

The  Professor  followed  her  downstairs  in  silence. 
On  the  steps  he  looked  at  her  and  wondered  whether 
it  was  good  to  be  so  hard;  but  at  the  same  time  he 
was  glad  Octavia  was  able  to  face  the  situation  in 
the  way  he  knew  it  had  to  be  faced,  and  above  all 
was  he  glad  that  he  himself  was  not  cast  for  the 
leading  part  in  her  programme.  Peter  was  a  selfish 
man,  and  it  was  his  happy  nature  to  be  able  to  shelve 
unpleasant  thoughts  whenever,  which  was  very 
seldom,  they  came  to  trouble  his  easy  philosophy  of 
life. 

Thus  the  campaign  on  behalf  of  Henry's  creed 
opened.  Two  simple  souls  were  determined  to  up- 
hold their  right  to  make  fools  of  themselves.  The 
Duke  was  actually  enjoying  the  opening  stage  of  the 
battle.  The  doubts  and  pains  of  love  were  not 
his,  and  he  was  experiencing  the  exhilaration  of 
the  crusader.  With  Molly  it  was  very  different. 
Though  she  had  always  clung  to  the  childlike  ro- 
mance which  was  one  part  of  her  nature,  she  had  been 
brought  up  in  a  school  of  common  sense,  and  it  was 

139 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

not  possible  for  her  to  compass  the  blithe  disregard 
which  Henry  showed  toward  the  future.  She  knew 
too  much  about  the  world  not  to  respect  it  as  an 
enemy. 

In  a  country  cottage,  with  only  Nature  looking  on, 
she  felt  sure  that,  with  all  the  love  and  service  she 
was  ready  to  lay  at  his  feet,  she  could  not  fail  to  win 
his  love  in  return.  In  Piccadilly,  in  a  setting  which 
only  served  to  show  her  faults,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
odds  might  turn  out  to  be  too  strong  for  her.  She 
felt  so  desperately  alone,  and  she  was  afraid,  dread- 
fully afraid,  of  Octavia  and  all  that  lay  behind  her. 
It  seemed  only  too  likely  that  while  she  grasped  the 
very  triumph  of  her  Romance  in  one  hand,  she  was 
to  write  its  obituary  notice  with  the  other. 

There  was  another  blow  in  store  for  her  when  the 
Dujce  returned.  His  creed  was  so  complete,  and  his 
opportunities  for  carrying  it  out  had  been  so  utterly 
unhindered,  that  it  left  him  curiously  egoistic.  It 
had  never  entered  his  head  that  his  marriage  would 
in  any  way  interfere  with  the  expedition  on  which  he 
had  set  his  heart,  and  judging  Molly  by  himself,  he 
had  never  troubled  to  consider  whether  a  six-months' 
absence  from  her  husband  immediately  after  the 
wedding  would  be  altogether  acceptable  to  his  wife. 
The  word  "honeymoon"  was  meaningless  to  him. 
It  is  perfectly  possible,  had  Molly  showed  the  un- 
happiness  she  felt  when  he  calmly  told  her  that  at  the 
end  of  the  week  he  was  going  abroad  for  six  months, 
he  would  have  swept  the  whole  expedition  out  of 
his  mind,  as  another  sacrifice  to  the  Cause  he  had 
determined  to  espouse,  and,  with  what  Peter  had 

140 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  WYNNINGHAME 

called  his  eighteenth-century  manners,  smoothed  over 
any  storm  that  arose.  But  no  storm  followed  his 
statemen*,  only  a  rather  long  silence  and  a  hesitating 
hope  that  "he  would  enjoy  himself." 

He  endeavored  to  interest  her  in  his  scientific  pur- 
suits and  told  her  the  story  of  the  golden  toad  he 
was  going  to  find,  and  though  the  subject  did  not 
interest  her  in  the  least,  yet  the  way  he  told  it,  like 
some  living  fairy  tale,  brought  back  to  her  all  the 
first  love  she  had  experienced  when  he  was  only  her 
dream-monger,  and  made  the  tears  all  the  harder 
to  keep  back.  When  he  had  gone  she  flung  herself 
into  the  armchair  and  felt  certain,  for  the  first  time, 
that  she  had  made  a  mistake,  that  she  ought  never 
to  have  let  him  marry  her,  and  that  she  could  never 
bring  him  anything  but  unhappiness.  And  again  she 
sent  a  broken  prayer  up  to  heaven,  this  time  breathed, 
between  her  tears,  into  the  ducal  cushions  of 
Wynninghame  House:  "O  God — let  me  die  if  I 
make  him  unhappy." 


CHAPTER   XII 

ON  THE  EDGE  OF  A  VOLCANO 

OcTAVlA  told  nothing  of  the  Duke's  marriage  either 
to  Mary  or  to  Gerald.  On  the  boy  it  could  not  fail 
to  have  a  demoralizing  effect.  With  a  complete  dis- 
regard both  of  the  feelings  of  his  relations  and  the 
dictates  of  caution,  Gerald  had  got  himself  engaged 
to  an  ex-circus  artiste  with  a  reputation  (both  for 
her  art  and  other  things)  which  extended  from 
Moscow  to  Los  Angeles.  The  affair  did  not  really 
disturb  Octavia  overmuch,  as  he  had  come  to  the 
age  when  a  young  man  is  morally  certain  to  become 
engaged  to  someone,  and  it  really  simplified  matters 
that  the  lady  should  be  absolutely  undesirable  rather 
than  simply  ineligible — as,  for  instance,  a  governess. 
That,  at  any  rate,  was  the  way  Octavia  looked  at  it, 
and  for  a  highly  trained  Mayfair  mother  the  affair 
was  really  elementary.  As  for  Mary,  her  mother 
had  never  understood  her,  and  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  telling  her  anything.  Lady  Blake  hoped  to  get 
Henry  away  on  to  the  high  seas  before  matters  be- 
came really  awkward,  and,  with  a  clear  field,  she  felt 
pretty  certain  of  her  own  capabilities  for  dealing 
with  the  situation. 

Meanwhile,  Mary  having  been  promised  a  fare- 
well dance  on  board  the  Duke's  yacht,  the  "Cobra," 
which  was  even  now  lying  at  anchor  in  Southampton 
Water,  Octavia  thought  it  best  to  allow  the  arrange- 

142 


ON    THE    EDGE    OF    A   VOLCANO 

ment  to  continue,  and  maneuvre  the  Duchess  out  of 
the  way  rather  than  cancel  the  invitations  and  be 
forced  to  supply  some  explanation  for  so  doing. 
What  was  her  satisfaction,  then,  a  few  days  later, 
on  receiving  a  letter  from  the  Professor  telling  her 
that  Henry  was  arranging  to  send  his  wife  back  to 
her  home  pending  his  return  from  the  South  Seas! 

To  tell  the  truth,  the  marriage  over  and  the  first 
storm  of  indignation  safely  survived,  the  Duke  had 
almost  forgotten  the  existence  of  his  wife,  and  had 
devoted  himself  once  more  wholeheartedly  to  the  ex- 
pedition. The  difficulty  before  had  been  that  Molly 
could  not  receive  money  from  him  because  they  were 
not  married.  Now  that  difficulty  was  solved,  and  as 
his  wife  she  could  buy  as  many  books  as  she  liked. 
That  was  as  far  as  Henry  looked.  Already  the 
affair  had  become  almost  an  incident  in  his  life.  He 
slipped  straight  back,  after  his  momentary  exhibition 
of  e  .ergy  and  decision,  into  his  old  habits  of  absent- 
mindedness,  laziness,  and  leaving  his  hat  on  seats. 
He  did  not  realize  in  the  least  that  human  emotions 
are  dangerous  things  to  play  with  or  even  to  leave 
lying  about,  and  that  his  marrying  Molly  had  fired  a 
mine  that  was  ultimately  to  bring  down  the  whole 
edifice  of  his  self-made  paradise  clattering  about  his 
ears,  while  amid  the  ruins  a  woman  was  to  rise  up 
and  bid  him  build  a  new  and  better  one  upon  the 
debris. 

But  for  the  present  that  woman,  thinking  only  of 
his  happiness,  had  acquiesced  meekly  in  a  return  to 
No.  3  Ball  Street,  and  that  very  night,  after  being 
mistress  of  Wynninghame  House  for  four  hours,  she 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

drove  off  in  the  Duke's  car,  his  kiss  still  wet  upon 
her  hand,  back  to  Bermondsey;  and  had  you  asked 
her  what  she  was  thinking  of  as  the  great  automobile 
drew  her  again  toward  the  mean  streets  where  for 
many  years  she  had  kept  the  pale  flame  of  Romance 
alight,  she  would  have  answered  truthfully,  "Noth- 
ing." She  felt  that  she  had  been  caught  up  in  a 
whirlwind  of  unreality,  and  was  being  deposited 
miraculously  in  front  of  her  father's  house  again. 
She  would  not  have  been  surprised  had  her  father 
greeted  her  with  the  old  formula,  "Well,  got  a  job?" 

She  was  recalled  by  the  voice  of  the  chauffeur 
saying,  "Is  this  the  house,  your  Grace  ?"  And  in  his 
last  words  she  realized  that  she  could  at  length 
answer  her  father  in  the  affirmative.  She  had  cer- 
tainly got  a  job!  She  could  not  help  wondering 
whether  she  would  be  able  to  keep  it. 

On  going  into  the  house  she  found  that  nobody 
was  at  home,  so  that  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame, 
avoiding  from  habit  her  father's  Windsor  chair,  sat 
down  in  the  other,  and  realized  for  the  first  time 
that  the  springs  were  broken.  They  had  been 
broken  for  five  years,  and  it  had  been  accounted 
the  most  comfortable  chair  in  the  house.  Now  it 
was  dreadful,  and  she  got  up  almost  immediately. 
Thus  it  is  to  become  suddenly  a  Duchess. 

She  looked  round  the  room,  and  the  black  horse- 
hair of  the  sofa  recalled  suddenly  the  figure  of  Sidney 
Goyle,  whose  wife  it  was  to  have  been  an  honor  for 
her  to  become.  She  remembered  it  without  a  smile. 
The  horror  of  that  general  accusation,  when  every- 
one had  taken  her  guilt  for  granted,  was  not  going 

144 


ON   THE   EDGE   OF   A  VOLCANO 

to  be  effaced  from  her  mind  for  many  days.  In  cer- 
tain matters  Molly,  like  the  Duke,  had  lived  in  a 
paradise  of  her  own.  Like  the  Duke,  she  was  going 
to  suffer  for  it.  A  feeling  of  dreadful  loneliness 
came  over  her.  She  was  a  Duchess  without  a  home. 
She  went  up  to  the  little  bedroom  which  she  had 
shared  with  Gladys,  and  where  she  felt  that  some- 
thing might  remain  which  she  could  call  her  own. 
But  this,  too,  had  changed  even  since  last  night  when 
she  had  slept  there.  The  magic  wand  of  the  dream- 
monger  had  swept  away  in  a  moment  all  her  old  life ; 
what  had  he  given  her  in  exchange?  It  only  shows 
how  dangerous  it  is  to  meddle  with  magic  of  any 
kind.  Henry  had  yet  to  learn  that  the  pebble 
thrown  into  a  pond  causes  ripples  that  have  no  end. 

Finally,  Molly  wandered  into  the  kitchen,  where 
Romance  had  looked  like  ending  in  a  beating,  and 
she  wondered  whether  her  father  would  find  it  as 
easy  to  thrash  a  Duchess.  There  she  lost  herself 
in  a  tangle  of  dreams  and  questions  which  she  could 
not  answer,  wondering  at  the  past  and  fearing  the 
future,  yet  all  her  problems  colored  with  a  love  that 
refused  to  give  up  hope. 

And  there,  sitting  on  the  dresser  and  swinging  her 
legs,  the  family,  returning  from  a  triumphant  tour 
'of  the  homes  of  incredulous  neighbors,  found  the 
iDuchess  of  Wynninghame. 

Samuel  Shine  regarded  her  in  stupefaction  for 
some  moments;  then  his  face  settled  into  a  grim 
smile. 

"I  knew  it,"  he  said.  "What  did  I  say?  You've 
made  a  pretty  set  of  fools  of  us,  Em,  dragging  us 

145 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

round  to  tell  everybody.  He's  turned  'er  down  and 
sent  'er  'ome.  I  knew  there  was  'umbug  some- 
where." 

Mrs.  Shine's  rat-trap  of  a  mouth  snapped  at  once. 

"Then  she's  not  an  honest  woman,  an'  won't  be," 
she  said. 

Molly  got  down  off  the  dresser. 

"I  was  married  this  afternoon,  mother,"  she  said 
evenly. 

"Special  license?"  said  Gladys,  to  whom  no  detail 
of  the  marriage  laws  was  unknown. 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  said  her  mother.  Only  the 
production  of  the  certificate  served  to  convince  her. 
When  it  was  finally  borne  in  upon  the  three  that  they 
stood  in  the  presence  of  the  Duchess  of  Wynning- 
hame,  their  tongues  seemed  suddenly  tied. 

"And  what  is  more,"  said  Molly  suddenly  and 
indignantly,  "I  am  not  in  the  least  an  honest  woman." 

"The  Lord  'as  'eaped  coals  of  fire "  began 

Mrs.  Shine  feebly,  but  her  husband  cut  her  short. 

"Shut  up,  Em!"  he  shouted.  "It's  a  bloomin' 
miracle — that's  what  it  is !" 

"And  what  have  you  got  to  say,  Gladys?"  said 
Molly  to  her  sister. 

"Oh,  you  lucky!"  ejaculated  the  mistress  of 
"short'and." 

She  had  some  difficulty  in  explaining  to  them  that 
she  had  come  back  to  Ball  Street  for  six  months  be- 
cause the  Duke  was  going  abroad.  She  spoke  of 
him  always  as  the  Duke,  for  it  was  some  time 
before  she  got  used  to  the  idea  of  referring  to  her 
husband. 

146 


ON    THE    EDGE    OF    A   VOLCANO 

"What!"  said  Gladys,  after  her  sister  had  spent 
weary  hours  trying  to  make  them  understand  the 
Quest  of  the  Toad.  "What,  ain't  there  going  to 
be  a  'oneymoon?" 

The  question  brought  a  blush  to  Molly's  cheeks. 

"Not  yet,"  she  answered  shortly. 

That  her  family  had  an  indisputable  right  to  ask 
these  questions  annoyed  her.  On  the  other  hand, 
their  speechless  amazement  every  time  they  realized 
afresh  that  they  were  talking  to  a  Peeress  amused 
her.  They  were  untrained  in  the  surprises  of 
Romance,  and  this  proof  that  fairy  tales  are  never 
really  impossible  took  them  out  of  their  depth  at 
once.  The  mere  fact  of  cooking  eggs  and  bacon 
every  morning  at  a  quarter  to  eight  for  twenty  years 
is  quite  sufficient  to  make  many  of  us  incapable  of 
realizing  that  there  is  a  great  deal  more  in  the  world 
due  to  accident  than  to  design.  The  illimitable  pos- 
sibilities of  life  get  easily  lost  among  its  duller  prob- 
abilities. The  plain  man  is  annoyed  by  the  fantastic 
in  theory,  in  practice  he  finds  it  an  antagonist  that 
disarms  him  at  a  blow.  It  is  sometimes  not  realized 
how  much  importance  we  attach  to  motives  in  life. 
We  pick  up  a  morning  paper  and  read  of  something 
quite  outside  our  experience,  quite  in  line  with  the 
methods  of  fiction.  We  can  do  it  every  day;  a 
murder,  an  intrigue,  a  romance,  a  war.  But  if  be- 
hind that  we  can  read  a  motive,  greed,  love,  or  ambi- 
tion, the  whole  thing  becomes  commonplace.  Where 
no  reason  for  an  event  can  be  found  it  quickly 
becomes  a  nightmare. 

And  the  family  could  discover  no  motive  for  the 

147 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Duke's  marriage.  For  common-sense  folk  it  is  one 
of  the  most  difficult  things  in  the  world  to  imagine 
an  idea  or  a  conviction  running  riot.  Their  emotions 
are  orderly,  schooled  to  a  scheme,  and  they  look 
upon  life  as  a  dull  game,  where  the  breaking  of  rules 
leads  to  the  police-station.  Wisely,  they  have  con- 
sented to  run  in  harness,  and  the  unbridled  colts  of 
the  world  merely  get  in  their  way.  A  buccaneer  has 
no  real  existence  for  them;  a  crusader  is  simply 
History.  Yet  there  are  buccaneers  in  every  city  and 
crusaders  all  over  the  world. 

But  it  is,  naturally,  the  instinct  of  the  harnessed 
ones  to  be  irritated  with  the  buccaneer  and  impatient 
with  the  crusader.  Thus,  mingled  with  the  pride 
of  Molly's  position  there  grew  in  the  Shine  family 
a  feeling  of  irritation  and  rebellion  against  this  un- 
reasonable business.  Mrs.  Shine  could  find  no  prec- 
edent for  it  in  her  Bible,  though  her  husband,  driven 
to  desperation,  remarked  that  there  was  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  Adam  wasn't  a  gentleman  and  that 
he  married  a  thief.  Invention,  however,  is  some- 
times Necessity's  illegitimate  child,  and  Mrs.  Shine 
remained  unconvinced  of  the  presence  of  the  hand 
of  God  in  the  affair.  Gladys  became  annoyed  for 
a  more  simple  reason.  Her  friends  in  the  City 
refused  to  believe  her  story.  As  for  Samuel  Shine 
himself,  the  first  result  of  being  a  Duke's  father-in- 
law  manifested  itself  in  an  interminable  desire  among 
his  friends  that  he  should  pay  for  their  liquor.  Like 
a  great  many  people  before  them,  the  Shine  family 
discovered  that  sudden  fame  is  rather  like  hock  in 
a  champagne  bottle. 

148 


ON    THE    EDGE   OF   A   VOLCANO 

To  Molly,  too,  unexpected  annoyances  kept  ap- 
pearing. She  became  tired  and,  curiously  enough,  a 
little  ashamed  of  answering  the  same  question,  asked 
in  awed  tones  by  her  girl  friends,  "Are  you  really  a 
Duchess?" 

She  was  quick  to  see  that  they  felt  something 
strange  about  her  marriage,  the  honeymoon  of  which 
she  was  to  spend  alone.  It  matters  very  little  what 
title  your  husband  confers  on  you,  what  position  or 
what  wealth  you  may  have  achieved,  some  immutable 
facts  remain,  and  one  of  them  is  that  a  newly  married 
woman,  even  if  she  is  a  queen,  desires  to  be  able  to 
exhibit  her  man.  Thus  at  the  end  of  two  days 
Molly  found  herself  more  unhappy  than  she  had 
ever  felt  under  the  old  regime.  Her  friends  with  a 
not  unpardonable  jealousy  became  aloof,  and  partly 
because  they  were  not  certain  how  to  address  her, 
partly  because  they  could  not  bring  themselves  to 
label  with  a  title  one  they  had  known  so  long  as 
plain  Molly  Shine,  they  gradually  avoided  her  and 
left  her  alone  with  her  glory. 

She  had  nothing  save  a  little  housework  to  occupy 
her,  and  even  the  discipline  of  that  was  ineffective 
now  that,  by  general  consent,  she  was  considered 
above  it.  The  silly  books  in  which  before,  had  she 
so  wished,  she  was  able  to  drown  herself,  now  seemed 
too  silly  for  words.  Above  all,  there  was  always 
with  her  the  knowledge  that  her  husband,  for  whom 
she  would  cheerfully  have  bartered  her  chances  of 
heaven  at  any  moment,  did  not  love  her,  and,  more- 
over, that  she  was  debarred  from  exercising  on  him 
her  arts  or  making  any  attempt  to  win  his  love  for 

149 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

herself.  She  looked  back  to  those  few  weeks  in 
which  she  had  carried  the  image  of  him  in  her  heart 
under  his  letter,  hugged  to  herself  her  love-affair 
with  passionate  jealousy  for  its  privacy,  and  tortured 
herself  with  delicious  dreams  of  what  could  never  be, 
and  saw  that  she  had  had  happiness  within  reach 
of  her  fingertips  then,  whereas  now  that  she  had 
grasped  it  with  both  hands,  there  was  nothing  left. 

Her  father,  a  good-hearted  man,  realized  that  she 
was  unhappy,  and  cursed  the  world  ineffectually. 
Her  mother  dealt  at  length  with  the  nature  and 
ultimate  fiery  results  of  the  sin  of  ingratitude. 
Imagine  the  added  zest  to  a  sermon  preached  at  a 
Duchess !  Gladys,  with  whom  Molly  had  never  had 
anything  in  common,  was  now  intolerable  in  the  child- 
ishness of  her  reflected  glory. 

Molly  became  more  and  more  miserable.  And 
Henry,  forsooth,  deep  in  charts  and  maps  and  speci- 
fications at  Wynninghame  House,  was  laboring  under 
the  delusion  that  he  had  made  her  happy,  and  as 
an  extra  testimonial  to  the  Cause,  had  a  vague  idea 
that  he  would  make  her  still  happier  on  his  return. 

The  first  sign  that  the  ripples  made  on  the  pond 
by  the  pebble  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  had  thrown 
in  were  likely  to  go  farther  than  the  eye  could  see, 
became  evident  about  three  days  after  Molly's  re- 
turn home,  when  Mrs.  Shine  suddenly  showed  a 
desire  to  move  into  "a  bigger  'ouse  an'  live  in  a  style 
according''  on  Molly's  very  liberal  allowance.  The 
determined  opposition  of  Samuel,  an  essentially  con- 
servative man,  who  hated  getting  used  to  a  new 
public-house  much  as  a  boy  hates  going  to  a  new 


ON    THE    EDGE    OF   A   VOLCANO 

school,  caused  a  serious  tension  in  the  Shine  house- 
hold. To  Molly  it  seemed  that  her  family  could 
do  nothing  that  was  not  sordid.  And  yet,  for  all 
her  distaste,  she  felt  ashamed  of  herself  for  being 
ashamed  of  them. 

And  then,  suddenly,  Mrs.  Shine  made  a  discovery 
the  result  of  which  was  to  precipitate  matters  very 
considerably.  This  was  no  less  than  the  fact  that 
her  neighbors,  after  the  first  day  or  two  of  stupefied 
admiration,  began  to  form  twos  of  their  own  mak- 
ing and  add  them  together.  The  non-appearance  of 
the  Duke,  the  lack  of  cars  and  coronets  and  tiaras, 
the  sight  of  Molly  cleaning  the  steps  one  morning, 
which  had  been  whispered  round  the  whole  parish 
with  awe,  all  told  gradually  upon  their  imaginations. 
In  short,  Mrs.  Shine,  four  days  after  the  return  of 
the  Duchess,  discovered  to  her  horror  that  a  general 
impression  was  making  itself  felt  in  the  parish  that 
the  story  was  not  true  after  all. 

This  new  development  kindled  the  righteous  wrath 
of  Mrs.  Shine  past  all  bearing.  It  appeared  that 
there  was  no  limit  to  the  number  of  crosses  she  was 
to  be  called  upon  to  bear.  She  worked  herself  into  a 
positive  whirlwind  of  fury  at  the  first  sign  of  in- 
credulity in  Ball  Street;  her  set  form  of  prayer  was 
augmented  that  night  with  a  petition  which  was 
blood-relation  to  a  curse.  Her  whole  twisted  and 
fanatic  nature  revolted  at  this  injustice,  and  she 
tossed  about  in  her  bed  most  of  the  night,  groping 
wildly  for  a  means  of  redress.  And  just  as  the  gray 
of  the  early  morning  insinuated  itself  round  the 
corner  of  the  blue  blind,  the  solution  came  to  her 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

and  she  fell  asleep.  Mrs.  Shine  had  suddenly  re- 
membered the  Press. 

On  the  nevt  day — which  was  Friday — she  dug  out 
of  a  workbox  an  old  card  Ym  which  was  the  name 
of  a  reporter  who  had  once  been  to  see  her  about 
a  local  inquest,  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  address 
on  its  face. 

The  journalist,  a  somewhat  decayed  gentleman  of 
fifty  years,  who  had  lived  his  whole  life  in  anticipa- 
tion of  a  scoop  which  never  came,  received  her  rather 
impatiently. 

"Madam,"  he  remarked  pompously,  when  she  had 
told  him  her  story,  "your  tale  is  ridiculous  upon  the 
face  of  it,  and  I  am  not  sure  if  it  does  not  amount 
to  libel." 

"You're  a  liar,"  retorted  Mrs.  Shine,  "and  may 
the  Lord  have  mercy  upon  you !"  Upon  which  she 
triumphantly  produced  Molly's  marriage  certificate. 
The  journalist  wavered;  his  life  had  seen  so  many 
disappointments  that  he  could  not  believe  in  such  a 
scoop  as  this  purported  to  be. 

"Very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Shine,  "ring  up  his  Lord- 
ship an'  ask  him." 

There  was  such  a  note  of  certainty  in  her  voice 
that  his  barrier  of  distrust  crumpled  and  fell. 

"If  your  story  proves  to  be  true,"  he  said,  "it  will 
be  in  every  London  paper  by  Saturday  night !"  His 
air  of  pomposity  was  ridiculous,  but  it  impressed 
Mrs.  Shine. 

"You  gentlemen  'ave  got  a  power,  an*  no  mis- 
take," she  said,  as  she  left  the  house.  And  she 
returned  to  Number  Three  Ball  Street,  in  the  com- 

152 


ON    THE    EDGE    OF    A   VOLCANO 

fortable  assurance  that  by  to-morrow  night  there 
would  not  be  a  doubter  in  the  parish  but  would  owe 
her  an  apology;  and  what  she  was  owed,  that  Mrs. 
Shine  was  the  sort  of  woman  to  receive. 

And  so  telephone  bells  were  set  ringing  and 
inquiries  were  set  on  foot  through  the  mysterious 
channels  at  the  disposal  of  the  Press,  and,  since  it 
was  the  Dog  Days,  it  was  determined  that  the  Duke's 
marriage  should  be  one  of  the  headlines  of  the  early 
evening  papers  for  Saturday.  Poor  Henry's  little 
campaign,  seized  by  the  gods  as  a  splendid  plaything, 
was  like  to  make  a  nine  days'  wonder. 

A  modern  prayer  might  well  include  a  petition 
that  we  may  live  dull  and  uneventful  lives  and  may 
never  be  raised  to  the  Peerage,  lest  by  chance  the 
dragon  of  the  Press,  gazing  hungrily  out  of  his  cave, 
may  notice  us,  and  all  our  little  adventures,  our  little 
passions,  our  little  tragedies,  may  only  serve  to  make 
a  meal  for  him  and  his  babies,  the  great  big  public. 
And  though  other  people's  affairs  make  very  good 
reading,  one's  own  are  apt  to  become  a  little  naked 
in  the  transition  from  the  home  to  the  world.  When 
Molly  went  to  bed  that  night  she  had  no  idea  that  her 
Romance  had  been  popped  into  the  sausage-machine, 
and  to-morrow  would  become  a  sausage. 

And  since  the  gods,  once  they  get  a  plaything,  are 
adepts  at  getting  the  best  possible  fun  out  of  it,  it 
happened  that  Henry  left  for  Wynninghame  Towers 
at  ten-thirty  on  that  Saturday  morning,  just  two 
hours  before  the  midday  papers  came  out,  for  on 
that  night  he  was  to  start  for  the  South  Seas  in 
quest  of  the  Golden  Toad.  He  had  quite  returned 

153 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

to  his  old  self,  for  he  left  his  hat  at  Waterloo  and 
his  umbrella  at  the  junction  for  Elton  Wick,  and, 
as  Octavia  remarked,  arrived  socially  naked.  As  a 
Napoleon  of  Ideals  he  must  have  cut  a  very  sorry 
figure  as  he  drove  up  the  avenue  with  his  hair  blow- 
ing over  his  face,  but  Mary,  always  stanch  in  her 
admiration  for  him,  gave  him  a  welcome  which  many 
an  uncle  might  envy.  Even  Octavia  greeted  him 
without  restraint.  She  felt  she  could  afford  to,  for 
everything  was  going  well.  One  thing  alone  was 
harassing:  Gerald,  lost  to  all  sense  of  decorum,  had 
brought  his  fiancee,  a  muscular  woman  of  the  name 
of  Belle  Ellis,  to  the  Towers  for  the  dance. 

Peter  Graine,  too,  looking  forward  to  his  change 
of  air,  and  fully  confident  in  Octavia's  power  to 
smooth  out  the  creases  at  home,  was  in  the  best  of 
spirits.  Yet  they  were  all  to  dance  that  night  round 
the  edge  of  a  volcano.  The  Duke's  ideals,  with  all 
their  splendid  errors,  had  long  been  innocuous  within 
the  four  walls  of  Wynninghame  House.  Now  they 
were  loose  and  stalking  abroad.  Henry  was  like  a 
lion-tamer  whose  beasts  have  escaped.  At  no  mo- 
ment had  he  ever  been  less  master  of  his  fate.  He 
had  pitted  his  Philosophy  against  Truth,  and  he  had 
underestimated  his  enemy.  Rather,  he  had  not 
estimated  him  at  all.  Truth  was  going  to  seize  him 
in  both  hands,  shake  him  till  his  brains  rattled  in 
his  head,  and  put  him  down  finally  either  a  cynic  or  a 
man. 

Meanwhile,  Elton  Wick,  being  one  of  England's 
tiniest  hamlets,  was  impervious  to  the  evening 
papers. 

154 


CHAPTER   XIII 

MOLLY'S  DILEMMA 

IT  happened  that  Molly,  at  the*  same  moment  that 
her  husband  arrived  at  Wynninghame  Towers,  was 
walking  down  Piccadilly  alone.  She  had  not  dared 
actually  to  re-enter  the  house  which  was  her  own, 
but  the  place  had  proved,  as  before,  a  magnet  to  her, 
and  she  had  been  unable  to  keep  away  from  its 
precincts.  Yet  it  was  by  no  means  a  thrill  of  hap- 
piness that  the  great  gates  gave  her  now.  They 
merely  served  to  remind  her  that  for  six  months  she 
would  not  look  on  her  beloved's  face.  And  after? 
Might  he  not  have  repented  of  his  charity  by  then, 
and  never  give  her  the  opportunity  for  which  she 
craved,  the  opportunity  to  do  him  service  ?  It  never 
entered  her  head  that,  being  his  wife,  he  could  not 
very  well  get  rid  of  her  without  cooperation  on  her 
part.  Molly,  in  many  ways,  was  built  on  the  heroic 
scale,  and  once  she  had  felt  he  wished  to  get  rid  of 
her,  she  would  have  gone  to  any  lengths  in  order  to 
make  his  path  easier.  There  is  a  heroism  of  service 
which  is  worthy  of  another  Homer. 

Thus  the  tears  were  in  her  eyes  as  the  Duchess 
turned  away  from  the  palace  of  her  lord  and  master 
and  set  her  face  toward  Bermondsey.  She  was 
puzzled  at  the  change  in  her  family,  the  strangeness 
of  her  friends.  She  felt  that  she  was  not  handling 
the  affair  in  the  right  way,  yet  she  could  not  see 

155 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

where  the  mistake  lay.  Like  all  people  who  arc 
getting  fogged  in  the  art  of  living,  she  felt  very 
lonely. 

It  was  while  feeling  so  that  she  suddenly  caught 
sight  of  a  newspaper  placard. 

"Peer's  Secret  Marriage,"  it  read.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  did  not  connect  it  with  herself.  She  had 
never  thought  of  her  marriage  as  secret.  The  Duke 
had  taken  no  pains  to  hide  it.  It  was  only  when  she 
saw  a  second  poster,  fluttering,  like  a  frightened  bird, 
in  and  out  among  incurious  passers-by,  that  she  real- 
ized that  it  was  she  who  was  providing  England's 
after-lunch  sensation  on  that  day. 

For  on  this  poster,  as  clear  as  day,  she  read, 
"Marriage  of  Duke  of  Wynninghame :  Strange 
Story."  For  the  first  time  she  realized  that  she 
had  married  a  public  character.  To  those  whose 
taste  runs  toward  the  picturesque,  the  flaunting  mid- 
day posters  may  well  stand  for  Henry's  banner, 
whereon  the  device,  as  once  upon  a  time,  chronicled 
the  piece  of  knighfr-errantry  which  won  him  his  spurs 
— and  lost  him  his  peace  of  mind. 

But  Molly  cared  for  none  of  these  things. 

At  one  bound,  the  pride  which  in  her  selflessness 
toward  Henry  she  had  been  in  danger  of  losing,  re- 
asserted itself  and  sent  the  blood  surging  through 
her  cheeks  like  a  tidal  wave  on  a  Devon  river.  She 
imagined  the  paragraphs,  penned  with  a  genius  for 
mixing  mental  cocktails,  laying  bare  the  nakedness 
of  herself  and  her  home.  It  seemed  monstrously 
indecent. 

She  opened  a  paper  and  read.     It  was  all  there. 
156 


MOLLY'S   DILEMMA 

The  journalist  who  had  written  up  the  story  had 
only  the  barest  facts  to  go  on,  but  he  seemed  to 
Molly  to  know  everything.  Such  is  the  power  of 
quite  lawful  innuendo  in  the  hands  of  the  artist. 
She  was  not  of  the  kind  that  derive  a  thrill  of  satis- 
faction from  seeing  their  names  in  print.  She  looked 
around  at  the  myriads  of  quite  uninterested  folk, 
hurrying  past  her.  To  her  imagination  they  were 
all  pointing  fingers  at  her,  staring  at  her;  the  new 
sensation,  King  Cophetua's  beggar-maid  who  had 
been  interviewed  by  the  Press.  She  blushed  again, 
raging.  In  the  big  affairs  of  our  lives  we  are  apt 
to  confuse  ourselves  with  the  Universe.  It  appeared 
to  Molly  that  the  world  gaped  at  her,  and,  like  a 
real  woman,  she  looked  around  her  for  a  protector. 

In  her  childhood  it  had  always  been  to  her  father 
that  she  had  turned  in  emergency.  On  more  than 
one  occasion  he  had  actually  comforted  her.  Samuel 
Shine  had  once  been  a  very  decent  sort  of  man.  Em 
and  drink  (they  were  two  sorts  of  intoxication)  had 
told  on  him,  yet  it  was  toward  her  father  that  Molly 
turned  now.  He  must  do  something;  it  never  en- 
tered her  mind  to  turn  to  her  natural  protector,  her 
week-old  husband. 

Thus,  the  paper  crumpled  in  her  hand,  she  fled 
back  to  Bermondsey  and  into  the  little  front  sitting- 
room. 

They  were  all  there,  a  paper  spread  out  before 
them  on  the  table.  Mrs.  Shine  with  her  thin  lips 
parted  in  triumph;  Gladys,  both  elbows  on  the  table, 
drinking  in  the  journalist's  little  romance. 

She  looked  up  as  Molly  came  in. 
157 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Oh,  you  lucky  thing!"  she  said. 

Molly  stopped  short  suddenly. 

"You've  made  a  'it,"  said  her  father  with  a  con- 
tented smile;  "that's  what  you've  done."  And  Mrs. 
Shine  nodded  with  an  air  of  mixed  pride  and  for- 
giveness for  past  sins.  They  were  genuinely  pleased 
about  it. 

"But  —  but,"  she  stammered,  "it's  dreadful! 
Don't  you  see  that  it's  dreadful?" 

They  stared  at  her  in  astonishment.  Thus  there 
was  packed  into  one  moment  all  the  difference  in 
nature  between  Molly  and  her  family  which  had 
made  her  childhood  unhappy  and  her  maturity  a  suc- 
cession of  puzzles. 

Her  mother's  face  became  hostile  at  once. 

"We  don't  need,"  she  said,  "any  of  them  fine  airs. 
If  you're  too  good  for  your  family  you  can  go. 
You've  never  been  easy  to  get  on  with  since  a  child, 
and  if  you  can't  see  things  as  others  see  them,  you'd 
better  go  to  those  'oo  can't.  Rejoice  with  those  that 
rejoice  an'  weep  with  those  that  weep — you'll  find 
that  in  the  Bible,  an'  you'll  not  dare  gainsay  it." 

Molly  stared  at  her.  She  could  not  keep  back 
the  contempt  in  her  face.  She  picked  up  the  paper. 

"Who  did  this?"  she  asked. 

"I  did,"  said  her  mother.  "If  you  think  that  my 
daughter  being  a  Duchess  ain't  to  be  published  in 
the  streets  of  Ashkelon,  you've  gone  up  the  wrong 
street  yourself." 

"Can't  say,"  began  Samuel  Shine,  "that  I  see 
anything  specially  upsettin'  about  it." 

"Why,  you  ought  to  be  proud  as  proud,"  said 
158 


MOLLY'S   DILEMMA 

Gladys,  snatching  back  the  paper  and  eagerly  eating 
up  the  headlines. 

Molly  felt  all  at  once  utterly  lonely.  There  was 
no  protection  here.  She  felt  as  if  she  was  standing 
naked  on  the  steps  of  the  Royal  Exchange ;  she  was  a 
metropolitan  Lady  Godiva.  There  are  people,  even 
in  our  own  age,  who  feel  like  that  about  advertise- 
ment, and  they  are  not  always  to  be  found  among  the 
"refined." 

One  thing  was  certain,  she  could  no  longer  remain 
in  Ball  Street.  She  could  not  face  her  friends  with 
the  knowledge  that  each  one  of  them  had  cut  out  her 
little  romance  from  the  paper  and  was  regarding  it 
as  a  curiosity.  She  wanted  to  hide  herself. 

"I'm  going,"  she  said  suddenly.  "I  can't  stay 
here  after  this." 

"Can't  stay?"  It  was  Samuel  Shine  who  spoke, 
a  genuine  astonishment  in  his  voice. 

"It's  no  use  trying  to  explain,"  said  Molly  quickly; 
"you  wouldn't  understand.  It  may  be  me  that's  all 
wrong — I  don't  know;  but  I  must  go." 

She  opened  the  door  and  Samuel  Shine  sprang  up. 

"You  can't  go,"  he  said.  "You've  got  nowhere 
to  go  to." 

Nowhere  to  go  to!  The  words  stung  her.  She 
turned  round  in  the  doorway  and  looked  at  them. 

"I  shall  go,"  she  said  proudly,  "to  my  husband." 
There  was  something  in  the  tone  of  her  voice  which 
stifled  any  remarks  the  family  were  about  to  make. 
By  the  time  they  were  ready  to  speak  the  front  door 
had  slammed,  and  Molly  had  gone. 

Her  father  summed  up  the  situation  with  a  sigh. 

159 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Always  been  the  same  since  she  was  a  kiddie," 
he  said.  "Something  'ad  to  bust." 

In  the  street  it  appeared  to  Molly  that  her  only 
course  now  was  actually  to  go  to  Wynninghame 
Towers  and  ask  Henry  for  the  protection  which  he 
owed  her.  When  she  had  announced  her  determina- 
tion to  go  to  her  husband  she  had  said  it  in  pride  and 
anger,  and  had  had  no  real  intention  of  doing  any- 
thing but  leave  the  neighborhood.  Now  it  was  being 
borne  in  upon  her  that  it  was  the  only  thing  she  had 
left  to  do.  She  did  not  think  overmuch  about  the 
wisdom  of  such  an  action,  for  once  it  appeared  as  a 
possibility,  her  desire  to  see  him,  which  it  had  caused 
her  such  pain  to  suppress  for  the  past  week,  swayed 
her  judgment  to  the  exclusion  of  all  reason. 

So  she,  too,  fled  to  Waterloo,  and  was  soon  on  her 
way  to  Elton  Wick,  very  frightened,  very  indignant, 
and  very  anxious  to  see  his  face  again.  But  all  the 
time  there  was  growing  in  her  the  sense  that  she 
was  a  married  woman  with  certain  rights  which  she 
could  demand  and  certain  concessions  to  her  pride 
which  she  could  insist  on  being  made. 

At  Eton  Wick,  on  asking  the  way  to  Wynning- 
hame Towers,  she  discovered  that  she  had  nearly 
two  miles  to  go,  and  there  being  no  sort  of  convey- 
ance available,  she  had  perforce  to  set  out  on  foot. 

There  is  nothing  which  is  more  apt  to  assist  the 
evaporation  of  one's  courage  than  a  lonely  walk  be- 
fore one's  ordeal,  and  by  the  time  Molly  turned  in 
at  the  drive  up  to  the  Towers  she  was  beginning  to 
wish  that  she  was  still  in  London. 

As  she  approached  the  house  she  heard  the  laugh- 
1 60 


MOLLY'S   DILEMMA 

ter  and  shouting  of  people  playing  tennis  away  on 
her  left.  Her  heart  almost  stopped  beating,  for  she 
heard  Octavia's  voice  above  the  rest,  urging  them 
to  come  in  and  dress  for  dinner.  But  she  clenched 
her  hands  and  went  on.  She  had  gone  too  far  now 
to  turn  back. 

Wynninghame  Towers  was  a  large  Tudor  build- 
ing with  an  enormous  courtyard  to  traverse  before 
one  came  to  the  entrance  hall.  When  Molly  peeped 
into  the  courtyard  she  was  overcome  with  horror 
at  the  windows,  which  seemed  to  her  interminable 
and  alive.  She  could  not  possibly  pass  beneath  their 
gaze. 

She  slipped  along  the  front  of  the  house  until  she 
came  to  the  French  windows  of  the  morning-room. 
There  she  stopped  and  looked  in.  Her  heart 
jumped  within  her,  for  there,  standing  with  his  back 
toward  her  and  trying  on  a  large  cork  helmet,  was 
Henry,  and,  miracle  of  miracles,  he  was  alone. 

She  stepped  quietly  into  the  room. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  ENEMY'S  COUNTRY 

NATURALLY,  the  moment  Molly  had  entered  the 
Duke  saw  her  in  the  mirror.  He  turned  round  at 
once  and  took  off  the  helmet. 

"Ah,  my  child,"  he  said.  "It  is  really  very  nice 
to  see  you  again." 

She  answered  nothing.  As  usual,  he  had  said 
the  one  thing  she  had  not  expected. 

"If  you  had  let  me  know  you  were  coming  the  car 
would  have  met  you,"  he  went  on.  "Did  you  get 
a  trap  ?" 

"I  walked,"  she  said. 

"Walked!"  he  echoed.  "But  how  perfectly  out- 
rageous !" 

"Henry,"  she  began  timidly,  and  then,  seeing  that 
he  did  not  seem  at  all  surprised,  she  took  her  courage 
in  both  hands.  "  "Henry,  have  you  seen  the  papers?" 

"It  is,"  he  answered,  "the  supreme  advantage  of 
this  place  that  everything  is  out  of  date  by  the  time 
it  reaches  us.  No,  I  have  not  seen  the  papers.  I 
suppose  they  have  an  entirely  false  account  of  our 
wedding  in  them?" 

"How  did  you  know?"  said  Molly. 

"My  dear,  it  was  quite  inevitable.  That  is  what 
papers  are  for.  To  provide  interesting  reading  for 
uninteresting  people,  it  is  naturally  necessary  to  make 
a  little  go  a  long  way." 

162 


THE    ENEMY'S    COUNTRY 

She  stared  at  him. 

"But  don't  you  mind?"  she  asked  curiously. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"No,"  he  said.  "One  cannot  afford  to.  Why, 
do  you  ?" 

"I  am  so  ashamed,"  she  answered,  "that  I  don't 
know  what  to  do.  I've  left  home  because — oh,  be- 
cause they  are  booming  me — it's  horrid — dreadful." 

She  buried  her  head  in  his  shoulder. 

"They  say  all  about  me  being  a  shop-girl,"  she 
sobbed,  "and  .  .  .  and  they  call  it  a  romance 
of  love  I" 

"I  am  sorry.  I  thought  you  knew  that  that  was 
bound  to  happen." 

She  said  nothing,  but  simply  cried  on  his  shoulder. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  now  that  she  knew  he  did  not 
mind,  she  was  prepared  not  to  mind  herself,  but  the 
joy  of  seeing  him  again  and  her  exhaustion  could 
only  find  its  natural  safety  valve  in  what  cooks  call 
"a  good  cry." 

As  for  Henry,  he  patted  her  head  and  wondered 
what  he  had  better  do  next.  It  began  to  appear  that 
a  married  man  has  responsibilities.  The  Duke  was 
still  vaguely  playing  with  Molly's  curls  and  asking 
himself  what  was  the  proper  course  for  him  to  adopt, 
when  Octavia,  in  the  height  of  fashion  as  reflected 
in  garden  frocks,  stepped  in  at  the  French  windows. 
She  stood  for  a  moment  at  the  window,  absorbing 
into  her  system  this  new  situation.  Molly,  her  head 
still  hidden  in  the  rapidly  dampening  folds  of 
Henry's  coat,  had  no  idea  of  her  presence,  and  the 
Duke,  though  the  imminence  of  a  scene  made  him 

163 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

feel  extremely  uncomfortable,  could  not  help  smiling 
whimsically  at  his  sister  over  his  wife's  head.  The 
fantastic  nature  of  the  picture  appealed  to  him.  On 
the  one  side,  Octavia,  a  living  mass  of  etiquette  and 
tradition,  on  the  other  himself,  with  his  absurd  creed 
and  his  ridiculous  marriage — both  he  and  his  sister 
as  obstinate  as  granite  in  their  different  ways;  and 
between  them,  crying  with  an  abandon  hopelessly 
impolite,  wonderfully  pretty  and  amazingly  unloved, 
the  sad  misfit  that  was  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame. 

With  a  little  shiver — for  it  was  turning  cold  in 
the  garden — Octavia  came  in  and  shut  the  window. 
Here,  indeed,  was  a  complication  which  she  had  not 
foreseen,  and  which  looked  like  being  very  awkward 
to  deal  with.  The  Duke's  marriage,  as  has  been 
said  had  been  announced  to  no  one  at  Wynninghame 
Towers,  and  it  was  no  part  of  Octavia's  plan  of  cam- 
paign to  make  it  public  thus  at  the  eleventh  hour. 
Moreover,  there  was  the  dance  that  very  evening  on 
the  yacht  which  lay  in  Southampton  Water,  half  a 
mile  out  from  the  landing  stage  at  Elton  Wick,  and 
the  lines  of  which  were  quite  visible  from  the  upper 
windows  of  the  Towers.  Being  the  first  event  of 
its  kind  which  the  season  had  yet  produced,  Society 
was  going  to  grace  it  in  large  numbers,  and  anything 
in  the  nature  of  a  scene  in  that  assembly  would  be 
the  worst  kind  of  disaster  which  Octavia  could 
imagine.  Of  course,  she  had  no  notion  that  many 
of  her  guests  were  to  find  an  added  piquancy  in  the 
dance  by  reading  the  well-written  story  of  the  mar- 
riage on  the  way  to  the  yacht. 

Molly  looked  up  on  the  click  of  the  window  bolt 
164 


THE    ENEMY'S    COUNTRY 

and  saw  Octavia.  She  endeavored,  out  of  a  kind  of 
protective  instinct  toward  Henry,  to  break  away 
from  him,  but  to  her  astonishment  and  not  a  little  to 
her  joy,  she  found  that  his  arm  round  her  shoulders 
tightened  its  hold,  and  so  it  was  for  the  first  time 
that  they  faced  Octavia  together,  literally  in  each 
other's  arms. 

"I  imagined,"  said  Octavia  slowly,  "that  your 
wife  had  gone  to  her  home." 

"She  wished,  apparently,"  returned  the  Duke,  "to 
see  the  last  of  me." 

"Yes,"  echoed  Molly. 

Octavia  moved  across  to  the  sofa. 

"Not  an  unnatural  desire  in  one's  wife,  is  it?" 
went  on  the  Duke. 

"Not  at  all,"  answered  Octavia  dryly.  "Only  it 
seems  a  pity  she  preferred  to  enter  the  house  through 
the  window  like  a  burglar." 

"You  came  in  at  the  window  yourself,"  said 
Molly,  surprised  at  her  own  intrepidity. 

"One  can  take  liberties  with  one's  house,"  said 
Octavia,  "when  one  has  lived  in  it  for  twenty  years." 
She  examined  her  fingers  carefully.  "Are  you  going 
to  stay  to  dinner?"  she  added. 

"Yes,"  said  Henry  decisively. 

"I  asked  the  Duchess,"  murmured  Octavia. 

Molly  stole  a  look  at  the  Duke. 

"My  husband  has  invited  me,"  she  said. 

"Personally,"  answered  Octavia,  "I  was  always 
given  to  understand  that  one's  husband's  invitations 
were  those  one  should  never  accept." 

"I  wonder,"  said  the  Duke,  as  he  placed  a  chair 
165 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

for  Molly,  "if  you  have  ever  realized,  Octavia,  how 
artificial  you  are." 

"It  takes  an  outstanding  intellect,"  answered 
Octavia,  "to  rise  above  its  education." 

"It  appears  an  easy  matter,  however,"  said  Henry, 
"to  sink  below  it.  You  cannot  persuade  me  that  you 
are  the  triumph  of  upper-class  education.  If  so,  by 
all  means  abolish  the  House  of  Lords." 

"I  don't  pretend  to  be  clever,  Henry;  I  merely  say 
I  am  not  a  fool." 

The  Duke  smiled  gravely. 

"That,  again,  is  a  pose,"  he  answered.  "You 
know  perfectly  well  that  you  are  clever.  What  you 
do  not  realize,  apparently,  is  that  you  are  merely 
clever.  Now  there  are  some  things  in  life  to  which 
the  application  of  cleverness  is  like  trying  to  build 
a  battleship  with  a  sixpenny  hammer." 

"Such  as?" 

"Such  as  simple  ideals  and  love." 

"On  the  other  hand,  Henry,  common  sense  can  be 
applied  to  both." 

"It  can.  So  could  prussic  acid  be  applied  to  you, 
and  with  the  same  effect." 

The  Duke  turned  to  his  wife. 

"My  dear  child,"  he  added,  after  a  pause, 
"naturally  you  will  dine  with  us  to-night,  and,  I  hope, 
come  on  board  the  yacht  to  the  dance  afterward." 
He  touched  a  bell.  "If  I  may  advise,  I  should  go 
up  to  your  room  and  make  yourself  tidy.  In  my 
presence,  of  course,  your  hair  can  come  down  as 

much  as  it  likes,  but  with  other  people "  He 

broke  off  as  Dunn  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

166 


THE    ENEMY'S    COUNTRY 

"The  Duchess  has  arrived  unexpectedly,  Dunn," 
he  went  on.  "Show  her  to  her  room  and  send  Miss 
Mary's  maid  to  her." 

"Very  good,  your  Grace,"  answered  the  valet. 

But  the  prospect  of  a  maid  was  too  much  for 
Molly,  even  with  her  newborn  courage. 

"Crikes,  no !"  she  said.     "Not  a  maid !'  ' 

"Just  as  you  like,  my  dear,"  said  the  Duke,  and 
Molly  went  out  of  the  room,  followed  by  the  in- 
valuable Dunn. 

For  some  moments  Octavia  regarded  her  brother 
in  silence. 

"Have  you  realized,"  she  said  at  last,  "that  that 
girl  has  got  nothing  to  wear?" 

The  Duke  was  about  to  reply  when  he  was  inter- 
rupted by  the  entrance  of  Peter  Graine,  hot  and 
dishevelled  from  a  game  of  tennis. 

"My  word,  Octavia!"  said  the  Professor.  "I 
beg  your  pardon.  I  didn't  know  you  were  here,  or 
I'd  never  have  come  in  in  this  state.  My  last  game 
of  tennis  for  six  months,  Henry.  After  this,  deck 
quoits  for  exercise." 

"Peter,"  said  Octavia  solemnly,  "the  very  worst 
has  happened." 

"Eh,  what  ?"  said  the  Professor.  "What's  Henry 
done  now?" 

"She  is  here,"  said  Octavia.  "She  is  to  dine  with 
us  in  a  Mile  End  Road  creation — she  is  to  dance 
Bermondsey  dances  on  the  yacht;  she  is  to  meet  the 
Countess  of  Edgeware  and  Lord  Henry  Fairlees, 
who  blackballed  Mr.  Pennington-Gore  because  he 
wore  a  tie  pin  in  the  shape  of  a  horseshoe  at  the 

167 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Pantheon.     She  is  to  grace  the  first  ball  of  the  season 
as  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame." 

"Which,"  said  Henry  softly,  "happens  to  be  her 
name." 

The  Professor  stared  helplessly  at  Octavia. 

"But  it  is  out  of  the  question,"  he  said.  "Look 
at  the  effect  it  will  have  on  Gerald,  whom  you  are 
trying  to  disentangle  from  his  tight-rope  walker." 

"If  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame  is  so  impossible, 
Peter,"  said  Henry,  "surely  it  will  be  a  splendid 
object  lesson  for  Gerald.  Not  that  I  have  by  any 
means  made  up  my  mind  that  Miss  Ellis  would  not 
be  an  admirable  woman  for  him  to  marry.  I  confess 
she  seems  rather  crude  to  me,  but  that  may  be  be- 
cause I  have  not  been  fortunate  enough  to  mix  with 
tight-rope  walkers.  Anyway,  I  should  be  the  last 
to  interfere  with  anything  Gerald  wished  to  do." 

"I,"  said  Octavia  firmly,  "should  be  the  first." 

The  Duke  rose. 

"Of  course  yo\i  would,  Octavia,"  he  said. 
"You'll  probably  succeed  in  driving  them  more  firmly 
than  ever  into  each  other's  arms.  As  I  said,  clever- 
ness is  the  last  weapon  to  use  against  love." 

"Love  I"  echoed  Octavia  scornfully.  "You  have 
admitted  again  and  again  that  you  know  nothing 
about  it  I" 

He  nodded. 

"That  is  why  I  treat  it  as  an  enemy,"  he  said, 
"and  am  taking  the  trouble  to  try  to  discover  what 
is  the  most  effectual  weapon  with  which  to  deal 
with  it." 

"And  what  is  it?"  cried  Peter  in  desperation. 
168 


THE    ENEMY'S    COUNTRY 

The  Duke  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  opened 
the  door. 

"Not  the  epigrams  of  1880,"  he  said.  "It  is 
getting  late,  and  I  am  going  up  to  dress  for  dinner. 
With  regard  to  the  Duchess,  I  propose  to  announce 
the  marriage  and  introduce  my  wife  to  the  family 
before  dinner,  in  here.  I'll  be  glad  if  everybody  is 
present.  I  wish  to  make  the  announcement  myself, 
Octavia,  please." 

"Very  well,  Henry,"  said  Octavia  dully.  The 
immensity  of  the  catastrophe  was  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  her,  and  the  realization  had  robbed  her  of 
repartee. 

The  door  closed  softly  behind  the  Duke,  and  left 
his  sister  and  the  Professor  staring  at  each  other. 

"My  God,  Octavia,"  said  Peter.  "It's  impos- 
sible! Henry  must  be  a  fool — a  damned  fool." 
He  recovered  himself  quickly.  "I  beg  your  pardon," 
he  said. 

"You  are  quite  right,  Peter,"  answered  Octavia 
as  she  opened  the  door.  "Henry  must  be  a  damned 
fool." 

As  a  last  word  on  the  situation  it  seemed  a  trifle 
inadequate. 


169 


CHAPTER   XV 

DRESSED  FOR  THE  PART 

IT  is  a  curious  trait  in  the  characters  of  human  beings 
that  the  imminence  of  a  trial  of  strength,  to  which 
they  have  looked  forward  with  considerable  appre- 
hension, produces  an  entirely  unexpected  confidence 
in  the  result.  What  we  fear  most  is  what  is  going  to 
happen  to-morrow.  To-morrow  comes,  and  we 
realize  that  human  nature  is  a  machine  that  has  never 
tested  its  highest  running  capacity.  There  is  always 
a  little  more  speed  to  be  got  out  of  it.  The  im- 
possibility of  the  old  injunction,  yv&fft  <reaor<5v,  is  what 
gives  life  its  zest  and  joyous  mystery.  We  are  all 
of  us  engineers,  and  none  of  us  knows  the  point  at 
which  our  pressure  gauge  will  burst.  In  the  crises 
of  life  the  man  or  woman  who  knows  how  to  live 
will  gamble  merrily  with  their  own  capacities. 
Molly,  who  had  refused  to  be  taught,  knew  very  well 
how  to  live.  She  had,  what  is  more  commonly  found 
among  the  uneducated  classes  than  the  rest  of  us, 
a  complete  knowledge  of  her  limitations.  She  knew 
that  in  the  warring  of  words  she  was  a  child  in  the 
hands  of  Octavia,  and  she  felt  a  babyish  awe  and 
admiration  when  she  saw  her  husband  utterly  un- 
abashed before  his  sister  and  returning  thrust  for 
thrust  with  entire  lack  of  effort.  This  part  of  So- 
ciety technique  she  knew  would  always  be  a  closed 


DRESSED    FOR   THE    PART 

book  to  her.  On  the  other  hand,  she  knew  that  her 
capacity  for  loving  her  dream-monger  was  entirely 
unlimited,  and  in  a  vague  way  she  realized  that  this 
was  a  weapon  before  which  Octavia  was  powerless. 

As  she  followed  Dunn  up  the  staircase  and  along 
the  tortuous  passages  of  Wynninghame  Towers,  she 
experienced  an  excitement  which  was  like  champagne 
running  through  her  veins.  She  would  show  the 
Duke  how  high  she  could  hold  her  head.  He  should 
see  she  would  not  disgrace  him.  For  a  brief  mo- 
ment she  realized  the  triviality  of  these  forces  that 
were  being  brought  against  her,  the  Lares  and 
Penates  of  Good  Form  and  the  tenacious  parasites 
of  an  honorable  tradition.  Convention  is  a  good 
and  a  beneficent  goddess,  but  she  was  unfortunately, 
born  blind.  It  would  have  surprised  Octavia  not  a 
little  to  learn  that  the  traditions  that  burned  so 
brightly  in  Molly's  soul  were  precisely  the  same  as 
those  which  had  won  his  spurs  for  the  first  Duke  of 
Wynninghame — the  traditions  of  loyalty,  love  and 
honor.  These  are  commodities  which  no  one  has 
yet  succeeded  in  cornering. 

She  was  shown  into  a  large  bedroom,  the  white- 
and-gold  panelling  of  which  made  an  instantaneous 
appeal  to  her  love  of  bright  things.  Like  all  of  us 
when  we  enter  a  room  for  the  first  time,  she  moved 
instinctively  toward  the  windows.  It  is  perhaps 
significant  of  the  fact  that  four  walls  are  not  really 
good  companions  for  anyone.  Terraced  gardens 
ran  down  far  below  her  window  to  the  belt  of  woods 
which  surrounded  the  estate,  and  through  which  she 
had  made  her  way  with  so  many  misgivings  not  very 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

iong  since.  Away  over  the  trees  through  the  bluish 
haze  which  was  the  herald  of  the  summer  night,  she 
could  see  the  water  still  loyally  throwing  back  the 
last  rays  of  the  sun,  and  out  beyond  she  saw  the 
outline  of  the  yacht  which  was  to  take  Henry  to  the 
other  ends  of  the  earth.  But  she  brought  her  eyes 
quickly  back  to  the  gardens  and  the  trees,  and 
breathed  deeply  in  the  beauty  of  it  all.  These,  she 
felt,  were  the  things  that  she  was  made  to  love,  the 
sweet  and  simple  joys  of  living — the  quiet  and  the 
romance  of  the  world.  How  much  better  the  trees 
and  the  grass  and  the  homing  birds  than  the  hectic 
gayeties  of  Piccadilly  and  the  stern  splendors  of 
Wynninghame  House! 

She  turned  and  realized  with  a  start  that  the  valet 
was  waiting.  A  week  ago  he  had  been  her  superior. 
To-night  he  was  her  servant.  She  did  not  trouble  to 
think  much  about  that,  but  to  Dunn,  who  was  a  man 
to  whom  all  the  ironies  of  life  made  their  appeal,  the 
comedy  of  this  quick  change  appeared  matter  for 
amusement.  The  world,  thought  the  valet,  was  a 
whimsical  place,  and  one  need  never  go  to  the  theatre 
for  one's  comedies.  But  in  his  grave  eyes  lay  sym- 
pathy for  the  newly  made  Duchess.  Perhaps  Molly 
saw  this  kindness  peeping  out,  for  she  turned  to  him 
suddenly  and  said: 

"Do  you  think  I'll  do?" 

The  valet  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"It  is  no  part  of  my  business,  your  Grace,  to  be 
a  critic." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"You  could  teach  me  so  much,"  she  murmured. 
172 


DRESSED    FOR    THE    PART 

"Only  the  things  that  do  not  matter,  your  Grace," 
he  answered. 

She  stretched  out  her  hands  toward  the  window. 

"Oh!"  she  cried.  "Fancy  dressing  for  dinner 
when  that  is  there!  Do  you  think  the  trees  laugh 
at  us?" 

He  said  nothing.  He  could  not  follow  her  fancy 
so  far.  She  turned  again. 

"You  will  teach  me,  won't  you?"  she  said. 

"I  will  tell  you  anything  you  wish  to  know,  that 
I  can,  your  Grace,"  he  said,  and  she  felt  that  she 
had  made  an  ally. 

"Shake  hands  on  it,"  she  said  impulsively. 
"P'r'aps  I'll  pull  it  off,  after  all." 

He  took  her  outstretched  hand  and  ratified  as 
curious  a  compact  as  was  ever  made  between  mis- 
tress and  servant,  and  then,  as  she  turned  once  more 
to  the  window  as  if  she  could  not  leave  the  vision  of 
that  fast-disappearing  landscape,  he  stepped  quietly 
out  and  when  she  turned  again  she  was  alone. 

But  in  the  servants'  hall,  where  the  word  of  Dunn 
was  the  mandate  of  the  hour,  the  valet  took  occasion 
to  point  out  that  the  new  Duchess  was  an  unqualified 
success.  For  these  things  are  a  matter  of  mo- 
mentous interest  to  servants. 

Annie,  Mary  Blake's  maid,  was  inclined  to  be 
supercilious  about  the  matter. 

"No  luggage !"  she  said  shrilly.  "That's  a  nice 
thing!  How  can  you  know  what  sort  of  a  lady  she 
is  till  you've  been  through  her  boxes?" 

Dunn  laughed. 

"Seems  to  me,"  he  observed,  "that  anybody  who 
173 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

employs  servants  is  a  fool.  I  suppose  you  judge  all 
your  mistresses  by  the  color  of  their  petticoats?" 

"Shows  how  much  you  know,"  returned  the  maid 
wickedly.  "The  first  thing  to  look  at  is  the  heels 

of  their  stockings,  and  then But  I'm  not  going 

to  satisfy  your  curiosity,  Mr.  Dunn.  What  I  want 
to  know  is,  is  she  worth  dressing?" 

"Go  up  and  see,"  remarked  the  valet.  "I  haven't 
seen  the  heels  of  her  stockings." 

"Yes,"  persisted  Annie,  "but  you  know  what  I 
mean.  What  do  you  think  of  her?" 

"I?  I  consider  her  Grace  is  admirable  in  every 
way." 

The  deep  silence  that  followed  the  remark  indi- 
cated that  this  was  looked  upon  in  the  servants'  hall 
as  an  official  statement. 

"What's  her  figure  ?"  said  Annie,  turning,  on  her 
way  out,  in  the  doorway. 

"Much  the  same  as  Miss  Mary's,"  answered  the 
valet. 

Annie  selected  a  frock  from  Mary  Blake's  ample 
collection,  and  knocked  primly  at  the  Duchess's  door. 

"Come  in,"  said  Molly,  who  had  spent  her  time 
undoing  and  rebuilding  her  hair. 

The  maid  came  in  and  shut  the  door.  She  gave 
one  practised  glance  over  the  Duchess  and  decided 
at  once  that  she  was  a  worthy  subject  for  her  work. 

"I  am  Miss  Mary's  maid,  your  Grace,"  she  began. 

"Oh,  but  I  ..."  The  words  died  away  as 
her  eyes  fell  upon  the  glory  that  was  Mary  Blake's 
evening  frock.  A  "creation"  has  been  the  Waterloo 
of  many  a  woman's  resolutions. 

174 


DRESSED    FOR   THE    PART 

"I  brought  one  of  Miss  Mary's  gowns,  as  your 
Grace  did  not  bring  your  own.  I  think  it  should 
suit  you,  your  Grace,  if  you  would  care  to  wear  it." 

"But  what  will  she  say?"  hazarded  the  Duchess, 
never  taking  her  eyes  off  the  frock. 

"I'm  sure  she'll  be  very  honored,"  said  Annie; 
"especially  as  I  know  she  is  going  to  wear  her  white 
to-night." 

Somehow  or  other,  Molly  found  herself  in  a  chair, 
with  her  hair  down  her  back  once  more  and  her 
curls  crackling  indignantly  in  swift  professional 
hands. 

"Miss  Mary  comes  in  so  late  from  her  tennis, 
your  Grace,  I'll  be  done  with  you  just  in  right  time 
for  her.  She'll  want  extra  time  to-night,  though, 
for  the  dance.  I  wouldn't  like  to  dance  on  board 
ship — not  if  it  was  me.  Mortal  terror  I'd  be  in  all 
the  time.  But  there!  some  people  will  dance  on 
Judgment  Day." 

The  voice  babbled  on  while  the  skilful  hands  coiled 
and  uncoiled,  bullied  and  cajoled,  caressed  and  be- 
labored the  rebellious  tresses  of  the  Duchess. 
Molly  realized,  in  a  sort  of  dream,  that  to  look  in 
the  glass  was  going  to  be  a  great  adventure.  .  .  . 
The  gorgeous  luxury  of  having  someone  standing 
behind  you,  making  you  beautiful,  the  certainty  that 
that  person  knew  how  to  get  the  last  ounce  of  fascina- 
tion out  of  her  raw  material,  the  knowledge  that 
when  you  looked  at  yourself  in  the  mirror  you  were 
going  to  see  something  you  had  never  seen  before — 
all  this  for  the  very  first  time  in  your  life — did  you 
ever  experience  such  a  whirlwind  of  excitement, 

175 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Neaera,  even  if  your  hair  were  to  be  far  too  well 
dressed  to  allow  anyone  playing  with  its  tangles  ?  It 
was  a  new  kind  of  joy  that  Molly  was  sampling,  the 
joy  of  being  managed,  of  being  "produced."  And 
as  the  maid  patted  the  last  curl  into  place  and  im- 
prisoned the  last  rebel  that  was  trying  to  escape  down 
Molly's  neck,  the  Duchess  realized  that  she  could 
command  this  blissful  hour  every  night  for  the  rest 
of  her  life.  In  the  vulgar  phrase,  Molly  had  tasted 
blood. 

And  then  the  frock,  with  which  Annie  performed 
absolute  miracles  in  order  to  make  it  look,  as  indeed 
it  finally  did,  as  if  it  had  been  made  on  Molly's  back. 
Never  before  had  the  girl  worn  an  evening  gown, 
and  she  gazed  in  an  awed  and  shy  way  at  her  bosom, 
much  as  a  baby  looks  at  its  toes.  It  rose  and  fell 
in  a  most  immodest  fashion,  thought  the  Duchess. 
She  could  not  help  feeling  that  there  was  something 
very  indelicate  in  allowing  all  the  world  to  see  you 
working,  so  to  speak.  Like  a  clock  with  glass  sides. 
She  wondered  what  her  mother  would  say,  and  she 
wondered,  too,  why  it  was  that  she  knew  that  it  was 
beautiful,  and  was  unashamed.  The  maid  wheeled 
a  great  pier-glass  in  front  of  her,  and  at  the  first 
glance  she  knew  that  if  all  this  loveliness  was  evil,  she 
must  perforce  become  a  disciple  of  the  Devil. 

As  for  Annie,  she  stood  and  looked  at  her  handi- 
work as  Botticelli  must  have  looked  at  his  completed 
Madonna. 

"Is  your  Grace  satisfied?"  she  asked. 

"I  think,"  returned  Molly,  "that  you  must  be  very 
clever."  The  maid  smiled  with  pleasure. 

r/6 


DRESSED    FOR    THE    PART 

"Your  Grace  is  very  kind,"  she  said.  "May  I 
go  to  Miss  Mary  now?" 

"Yes,  yes — of  course  you  can,"  said  Molly,  in  a 
surprised  tone;  one  cannot  get  used  to  being  a 
Duchess  all  at  once.  As  the  maid  reached  the  door 
Molly  could  not  help  asking  a  question. 

"Is  Miss  Mary  as  pretty  as  me?"  she  said  un- 
grammatically. 

Annie  smiled. 

"Oh!"  she  said;  "she's  the  fluffy  sort,  your  Grace; 
pretty,  yes — but  beautiful — well,  we  all  think  dif- 
ferent, don't  we,  your  Grace  ?  But  they  don't  repay 
labor,  not  like  the  dark  ones  do." 

She  slipped  out,  and  her  verdict  in  the  servants' 
hall  was  that  "her  Grace  was  a  bit  familiar  at 
present,  but  that  would  wear  off,  and  a  more  beauti- 
ful picture  she'd  never  wish  to  see."  Meanwhile 
Perrin,  the  butler,  who  had  gone  down  to  the  station 
on  business,  had  lighted  on  an  evening  paper,  which 
he  had  brought  back,  so  that  it  turned  out,  as  usual, 
that  the  servants'  hall  was  in  full  possession  of  the 
facts  before  the  upstairs  people  knew  that  anything 
had  happened  at  all.  And,  being  kindly  folk  and 
enlightened  Liberals,  they  wished  the  Duchess  luck 
and  prepared  to  serve  her  well — all  except  the  cook, 
who  was  a  Conservative  from  Devonshire,  and  was 
understood  to  refer  to  the  time  when  she  was  a  girl 
as  one  in  which  folk  knew  their  place,  whereas  nowa- 
days there  was  room  for  doubt  as  to  what  the  world 
was  coming  to,  not  that  it  was  her  business  or  ever 
likely  to  be — but  there  it  was. 

Meanwhile,  the  Duchess  sat  before  her  pier-glass 
177 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

and  wondered  why  she  had  never  thought  of  doing 
her  hair  that  way.  And  as  she  gazed  and  gazed  at 
her  radiant  reflection,  the  woman  in  her  asked  again 
and  again  why  Henry  did  not  love  her.  He  knew 
that  she  was  beautiful;  he  had  said  so.  Yet  she  felt 
that  he  would  not  notice  whether  she  appeared  in  a 
ploughman's  smock  or  a  miracle  from  Paris.  Would 
he  notice  to-night? 

She  looked  down  at  her  rich  young  arms  and 
wondered  whether  everybody  else  would  be  wearing 
bangles,  and  she  ran  her  finger  round  her  neck  and 
hoped  the  absence  of  a  necklace  would  not  prove 
to  all  that  she  was  only  a  pretense  Lady.  And  then 
she  sat  down  and  folded  her  hands  round  her  knee 
and  gave  herself  up  to  the  most  delightful  thoughts 
in  the  world.  But  what  those  were  no  gentleman 
would  be  uncouth  enough  to  ask,  and  every  lady  will 
know  beforehand,  so  there  is  no  need  to  enumerate 
them  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  quite  a  considerable 
time  elapsed  before  the  booming  of  a  great  gong 
told  her  that  the  time  had  come  when  she  had  got 
to  enter  the  arena  and  tremblingly  await  the  verdict, 
the  lowering  or  raising  of  the  thumbs. 

She  crept  down  the  stairs  on  tiptoe;  why,  she 
could  not  have  told  you.  Half-way  down  she 
stopped.  Voices  could  be  heard  in  the  drawing- 
room. 

A  panic  seized  her,  and  for  a  moment  she  almost 
ran  away  upstairs  again  to  hide.  But  that  would 
have  been  to  disgrace  him. 

Again,  according  to  her  quaint  habit,  she  sent  a 
mad  little  prayer  flying  up  to  God.  "O  God,"  she 

178 


DRESSED   FOR   THE   PART 

breathed,  "watch  over  me  at  dinner,  and  see  I  do 
the  right  thing  with  the  knives  and  forks  and  things." 
Only  the  very  best  of  us  can  make  a  request  like  that 
and  know  that  they  will  not  laugh  in  heaven. 

The  butler  bowed  to  her  in  the  hall,  and  she  smiled 
to  him  bravely  enough.  Though  he  had  but  just 
completed  the  journalist's  account  of  the  shop-girl's 
marriage,  Perrin  found  that  it  needed  no  effort  at 
all  to  treat  this  lady  as  a  Duchess. 

He  put  his  hands  upon  the  door-handle,  and  her 
heart  beat  very  fast  indeed.  She  suddenly  became 
conscious  of  nothing  but  the  bareness  of  her  bosom. 
It  appeared  to  her  a  monstrous  and  grotesque  in- 
decency. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

CRUSADERS 

THE  collection  of  humanity  which  had  gathered  in 
the  drawing-room  before  dinner  was  quite  interest- 
ing in  its  several  ways.  There  was  Lady  Octavia, 
wonderfully  turned  out,  whose  icy  exterior  was  find- 
ing it  still  a  little  difficult  to  hide  the  turmoil  of 
anxiety  which  was  going  on  in  her  brain.  There  was 
Peter  Graine,  whose  bald  head  always,  unfortu- 
nately, glistened  immediately  before  and  after  a 
meal.  Complete  silence  and  continual  application  of 
a  large  silk  handkerchief  to  the  inside  of  his  collar 
served  to  indicate  the  Professor's  state  of  mind. 
Then  there  was  Gerald,  who,  with  a  fine  disregard 
both  for  his  mother's  wishes  and  the  dictates  of  good 
taste,  had  brought  his  fiancee  to  Wynninghame 
Towers  for  the  dance,  and  was  thus  privately  under 
a  cloud.  But  he  bore  up  under  it  wonderfully.  The 
truth  was  that  as  Lady  Blake  had  never  ceased  to 
nag  him  throughout  the  whole  of  his  boyhood,  first 
on  one  trivial  count  and  then  on  another,  complete 
disregard  of  her  wishes  had  become  a  habit  with 
Gerald.  As  for  Belle  Ellis,  the  tight-rope  walker, 
she  was  probably  the  least  interesting  person  in  the 
room.  She  was  completely  obvious,  from  her  type 
of  beauty  to  her  intentions.  A  large  muscular  wo- 
man probably  the  wrong  side  of  thirty,  with  a  bold, 
dark  beauty  and  large  hands.  She  was  wise  enough 
to  make  no  effort  to  ape  the  manners  of  Society,  and 

180 


CRUSADERS 

her  ordinary  conversation  was  freely  interlarded  with 
slang  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  Like 
Ulysses,  she  knew  men  and  cities  well,  the  former 
probably  a  great  deal  better  than  he  did.  She  man- 
aged to  get  on  perfectly  well  in  the  rarefied  atmos- 
phere of  Wynninghame  Towers,  or  thought  she  did, 
which  amounted  to  the  same  thing.  As  Peter  had 
said  of  her,  she  was  used  to  balancing  herself  in  mid- 
air. Of  course,  she  had  carried  Gerald  right  off  his 
feet,  as  any  woman  who  has  large  eyes  and  a  fund 
of  risky  stories  from  every  capital  in  Europe  and  the 
East  will  overwhelm  any  young  man  of  twenty  years. 
Gerald  imagined  himself  genuinely  in  love  with  her, 
and  had  even  been  overheard  talking  to  his  friends 
of  a  grand  passion.  Some  of  these  friends  related 
the  affair  with  great  gravity  to  their  fathers,  and 
quarrelled  with  them  at  once  when  they  began  to 
talk  sense.  Old  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  an  octogenarian 
friend  of  the  family,  who  felt  that  the  country  owed 
him  a  peerage  at  least  because  he  still  drank  a  bottle 
of  port  after  his  dinner,  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
tradition  of  the  roaring  forties,  and  who  was  always 
called  Prometheus  by  his  intimates,  because  of  the 
hazardous  condition  of  his  liver,  had  been  genuinely 
pleased  at  Gerald's  misdemeanor,  remarking  only 
that  wild  oats  were  not  what  they  were,  for  in  his  day 
there  would  have  been  no  question  of  an  engagement. 
Mary  Blake,  whom  it  was  fashionable  to  describe 
as  a  "dear,  sweet  girl"  among  people  who  had  no 
idea  either  of  the  depth  of  her  emotions  or  the  range 
of  her  intelligence,  both  of  which  were  considerably 
above  the  average,  had  not  yet  appeared. 

181 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  came  in  upon  this  assembly  in  a  state 
of  perfect  composure.  As  he  entered  the  room  Miss 
Ellis  turned  to  him. 

"I  think  it's  perfectly  sweet  of  you,"  she  said,  "to 
go  all  the  way  to  the  South  Seas  to  give  us  an  excuse 
for  this  cute  little  dance." 

"But  that,"  said  Henry,  "is  not  the  sole  object  of 
the  expedition." 

"It's  all  that  matters,"  put  in  Gerald. 

"I've  never  been  nearer  the  South  Seas  than 
'Frisco,"  said  the  tight-rope  walker.  "That's  the 
devil  of  a  place,  you  bet.  I  remember  one  night 
there  an  old  guy,  who  looked  like  a  bishop,  got  oiled, 
and  loosened  up,  and  he  spun  one  of  the  funniest 
yarns  I've  struck  yet.  It  went  this  way:  'There  was 
an  oil-and-tar  merchant '  ' 

But  Gerald,  who  had  heard  the  story  before,  broke 
in. 

"Hasn't  the  gong  gone?"  he  asked  hurriedly. 

"No,"  said  Henry.  "I  have  an  announcement 
I  wish  to  make  to  you  all  before  dinner.  Where  is 
Mary,  Octavia  ?" 

The  question  was  answered  by  the  arrival  of  Mary 
herself  in  a  high  state  of  excitement.  Annie  had 
already  told  her  the  amazing  news. 

"What  I  wish  to  tell  you  all,"  said  the  Duke 
calmly,  "is  that  I  was  married  a  week  ago  to- 
day." 

"Ohl"  gasped  the  romantic  Mary;  "and  we've 
missed  the  wedding  I  Mother,  did  you  know?" 

Octavia  endeavored  to  smile. 

"Hints  were  given  to  me,"  she  murmured. 
182 


CRUSADERS 

"My  wife,"  went  on  Henry,  "has  unfortunately 
come  down  without  any  evening  gowns — so  I  will 
ask  you  to  excuse  her  to-night." 

"You  won't  have  to,"  said  Mary.  "She's  bor- 
rowed one  of  mine.  Oh,  Uncle  Henry,  I  do  hope 
you  will  be  happy." 

He  kissed  her  affectionately. 

"As  you  have  so  often  told  me,"  he  said,  "all 
married  people  are." 

"Well,"  said  Gerald  slowly,  "it's  been  a  bit  of  a 
surprise;  we're  all  awfully  glad,  of  course." 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  Duke.  "But  as  the  eve- 
ning papers  have  a  full  account  of  the  affair  in  them 
to-day" — here  Octavia  went  extremely  white — "I 
wish  to  tell  you  a  few  more  of  the  facts.  My  wife 
was  a  shop-girl."  He  made  the  remark  entirely  un- 
dramatically.  "And  I  am  sure  very  good  at  her 
job,"  he  added,  vaguely. 

Octavia  winced  perceptibly.  Surely  Henry  was 
not  going  to  enlarge  on  the  subject  in  public? 

She  rose. 

"It  will  be  annoying,"  she  said,  "if  dinner  is  late, 
as  we  have  to  get  down  to  the  yacht.  I  dare  say, 
Henry,  you  would  like  to  defy  convention  and  take 
your  wife  in  to-night?" 

He  could  not  but  admire  her  self-control.  It 
seemed  that  he  could  almost  hear  his  mother's  voice. 
He  nodded. 

The  gong  boomed  its  evening  message  through 
the  house,  and  Peter  Graine  started  to  talk  very 
quickly  about  the  expedition  in  an  effort  to  lift  the 
situation.  Octavia  had  recovered  and  was  already 

183 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

revolving  in  her  mind  possible  solutions  of  the  eve- 
ning's catastrophe. 

Only  Mary  did  not  disguise  her  anxiety  to  see  the 
Duchess,  and  so  it  was  she  who  was  standing  op- 
posite the  door  when  Perrin  threw  it  open  and  an- 
nounced, "Her  Grace  the  Duchess  of  Wynmnghame." 

And  so  Molly  came  into  the  room,  the  butler's 
sonorous  announcement  leaving  her  completely 
tongue-tied.  And  Henry  himself,  who  had  not  ex- 
pected to  see  her  like  this — her  hair  done  by  an  artist, 
her  gown  throwing  up  all  her  young  beauties,  so  that 
she  looked  as  if  she  had  but  stepped  down  from  some 
picture  in  a  gallery  of  artists'  dreams — Henry,  too, 
was  tongue-tied.  While  the  Professor,  being  quite 
the  most  susceptible  man  in  the  room,  said  "My 
God!"  quite  audibly,  and  then  in  a  panic  searched 
hurriedly  for  his  pocket  handkerchief.  And  Molly, 
being  a  thoroughly  natural  girl,  knew  perfectly  well 
that  it  was  her  beauty  which  was  causing  all  this 
confusion. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  my  child,"  said  the  Duke  sud- 
denly. "I  must  introduce  you."  Somehow  Molly 
wished  he  would  not  say  "My  child." 

"This  is  my  niece  Mary,"  he  was  saying,  and  the 
girls  shook  hands,  while  there  was  in  Mary's  eyes 
that  frank  admiration  which  is  so  rare  in  one  woman 
to  another. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Molly  simply.  "I'm  wearing 
your  frock.  I  hope  you  don't  mind." 

"You  look  simply  splendid  in  it,"  said  Mary,  and 
Molly  knew  at  once  that  she  was  a  dear. 

The  other  two  introductions  were  effected,  though 
184 


CRUSADERS 

Molly  shied  rather  at  the  cosmopolitan  Miss  Ellis, 
and  wondered  whether  here  she  had  to  meet  another 
antagonist  of  a  new  and  unknown  type.  As  for 
Gerald,  he  was  not  unnaturally  shy,  partly  at  her 
beauty  and  partly  because  of  the  curious  scene  that 
had  led  up  to  her  entrance.  Octavia,  of  course, 
though  the  steel-gray  of  her  eyes  never  changed  or 
softened,  behaved  brilliantly,  and  became  in  a  mo- 
ment the  hostess  of  her  brother's  wife — a  part  she 
played  so  well  that  simple  Molly  was  completely  de- 
ceived and  believed  her  change  of  frock  had  worked 
a  miracle.  The  Professor  sat  covertly  glaring  at 
Henry,  while  his  bald  head  glistened  protestingly 
against  the  evening's  outrageous  events.  It  was 
rather  a  relief  when  the  announcement  that  dinner 
was  served  bade  them  make  a  move  to  the  dining- 
room. 

Do  we  ever  realize  the  amount  of  training  that  is 
necessary  before  a  man  or  woman  can  become 
technically  perfect  in  the  art  of  eating  the  evening 
meal?  We  go  in  to  dinner  by  rule,  we  eat  by  rule, 
we  leave  it  by  rule.  The  whole  thing  is  a  meaning- 
less labyrinth  to  those  who  have  spent  their  lives 
content  with  the  lesser  intricacies  of  high  tea.  Why 
do  we  not  take  each  other  in  to  breakfast?  Our 
tempers,  perhaps,  would  not  stand  the  test  so  early. 
The  truth  is  that  the  elegancies  of  life  are  out  of 
date.  We  are  not  an  elegant  generation.  We  lean 
more  toward  the  grotesque  than  the  picturesque;  it 
was  one  thing  to  lead  a  lady  delicately  in  to  dine  when 
you  wore  something  very  chic  in  the  way  of  knee- 
breeches  and  had  taken  quite  as  long  over  your  hair 

185 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

as  Mademoiselle  herself.  It  is  quite  a  different  busi- 
ness when  the  lady  is  showing  twice  as  much  leg  as 
you  are,  and  the  utmost  limit  of  your  decorative  dar- 
ing is  a  piece  of  insignificant  braiding  on  your  trou- 
sers and  a  mildly  pretty  set  of  waistcoat  buttons.  If 
is  true  that  we  are  probably  in  a  better  mental  condi •* 
tion  than  our  forefathers,  who  were  called  upon  to 
pretend  that  ladies  had  no  legs  at  all,  but,  for  our 
manners,  when  the  spirit  has  evaporated,  what  is  the 
use  of  parading  the  letter? 

Henry,  it  is  true,  succeeded  fairly  well  in  combin- 
ing eighteenth-century  deportment  with  twentieth- 
century  surroundings.  But  even  with  his  advantages 
the  result  was  sometimes  grotesque  and  always  a 
source  of  irritation  to  his  friends  and  relations. 

Dinner  at  Wynninghame  Towers  was  always 
formal.  Lady  Blake's  mother  had  been  a  woman 
who  saw,  in  the-  loose  manners  which  even  in  her 
younger  days  were  growing  up  strongly  in  the  new 
generation,  a  positive  danger  to  society.  Her  train- 
ing had  bred  in  Octavia  a  rigid  conventionality  which 
had  become  part  of  her  nature;  in  Henry  it  had 
produced  an  unconventionality  just  as  rigid.  The 
truth  is  that  neither  the  Duke  nor  his  sister  was  of  a 
really  flexible  nature.  They  tended  toward  settling 
into  ruts. 

As  for  Molly,  she  would  have  been  much  more 
herself  eating  a  bun  out  of  a  paper  bag.  So,  prob- 
ably, would  they  all,  had  they  been  willing  to  try  it. 
The  desire  in  humanity  for  picnicking  is  simply  a 
revolt  against  our  self-imposed  rules  of  living.  No- 
body really  likes  having  his  soul  standardized. 

1 86 


CRUSADERS 

Molly's  first  impression  was  that  her  knives,  forks, 
and  spoons  were  as  the  sand  of  the  seashore,  in- 
calculable. Their  mere  number  and  brilliance  de- 
moralized her.  She  saw  that  it  would  become  a 
question  of  watching  Gerald,  who  was  on  her  left, 
and  endeavoring  to  give  an  imitation  that  would  de- 
ceive the  rest. 

To-night's  conversation  was  a  little  difficult. 
Henry's  incredible  announcement  before  dinner  was 
still  uppermost  in  everybody's  mind.  Even  the  in- 
domitable tight-rope  walker  was  a  little  subdued  by 
the  general  atmosphere. 

"Well,  Henry,"  said  Octavia,  with  the  greatest 
good-humor,  as  the  meal  drew  to  a  close  and  Molly 
began  to  feel  a  sense  of  profound  relief,  "I  suppose 
the  moment  has  come  when  we  ought  to  drink  to  the 
success  of  your  expedition." 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you,  Octavia,"  he  replied, 
"especially  as  you  are  convinced  that  it  is  a  wild- 
goose  chase." 

"Well,"  she  laughed,  "if  you  must  chase  geese, 
I  suppose  you  get  more  enjoyment  out  of  a  wild 
one." 

The  remark  was  double-edged,  and  Molly  felt 
Octavia's  eyes  on  her,  though  she  did  not  understand 
the  allusion  to  herself  in  the  retort.  Henry,  how- 
ever, missed  nothing  of  it. 

"It  is  the  spirit  of  adventure,"  he  said.  "So  many 
of  us  are  afraid  of  the  wild  things." 

"Surely  not  of  geese,  Henry?"  murmured  Lady 
Blake. 

"In  this  case,"  said  the  Professor,  who  was  a 
187 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

little  obtuse  as  far  as  conversation  was  concerned, 
"in  this  case  the  goose  is  a  toad." 

"Of  pure  gold,"  said  Henry  quickly. 

"It  sounds,"  murmured  Molly  timidly,  "like  a 
fairy  toad." 

"It  is,"  rejoined  her  husband,  "but  my  sister 
doesn't  believe  in  fairies." 

"Well,  who  does?"  said  Gerald. 

"Uncle  Henry  does,  and  I  do,"  answered  Mary 
firmly. 

"Of  course  we  do,"  said  the  Duke,  "if  only  be- 
cause we  can't  see  them." 

"I  guess,"  said  Miss  Ellis  slowly,  "the  fairies  quit 
this  planet  some  time  back.  Things  move  too  fast 
for  them  nowadays." 

"People  will  go  through  life  wearing  goggles," 
Mary  murmured,  almost  to  herself.  "Don't  you 
think,  mother,"  she  said  aloud,  turning  toward 
Octavia,  "that  we  ought  to  drink  the  health  of  the 
bride?  This  is  a  sort  of  wedding  breakfast,  you 
know." 

"Of  course,"  said  Octavia  without  enthusiasm. 

They  all  rose  to  the  toast  and  Molly,  whose  imita- 
tion of  Gerald's  methods  had  up  to  now  proved 
faultless,  rose  also,  still  trusting  that  what  he  did 
was  right. 

Thus,  without  any  conception  of  the  enormity  of 
her  behavior,  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame  pro- 
ceeded to  drink  her  own  health. 

As  they  sat  down  again  the  Duke  stole  a  look  at 
his  sister.  She  was  leaning  across  the  table,  murmur- 
ing the  necessary  and  conventional  words  which  fol- 

188 


CRUSADERS 

low  the  toasting  of  a  bride.  But  Henry  had  known 
her  far  too  long  to  be  deceived.  In  her  eyes  he  saw 
what  was  not  so  much  a  light  of  disgust  at  Molly's 
mistake  as  of  triumph  at  the  realization  of  her  fore- 
bodings. And  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  Duke 
realized  that  his  sister  was  a  snob.  He  started 
vaguely  trying  to  classify  her  as  he  would  one  of  his 
reptiles.  She  was  an  emotional  snob.  It  is  a  form 
of  barrenness  which  is  found  most  often  with  intel- 
lectual bankruptcy.  Lady  Blake  could  always  be 
relied  upon  to  do  the  right  thing.  Had  Molly 
started  to  drink  out  of  her  finger  bowl,  her  hostess 
would  have  been  the  first  to  put  her  lips  to  her  own. 
She  would  never  make  anyone  feel  uncomfortable  or 
embarrassed,  as  Henry,  lurching  his  way  through 
life,  was  continually  doing.  Indeed,  Octavia  was  a 
machine  of  breeding  and  education,  absolutely  per- 
fected. But  her  snobbishness  lay  in  the  fact  that 
these  things — the  fish  knives,  the  finger  bowls,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it — really  mattered  to  her. 

Her  emotions  had  become  questions  of  like  and 
dislike — not  love  and  hate.  Perhaps,  mused  Henry, 
the  change  had  happened  in  her  childhood.  Or  was 
it  possible  that  some  people  were  born  only  with  a 
capacity  for  distaste  and  approval  ?  That  was  why, 
he  decided,  one  could  not  hate  Octavia,  although  she 
was  hateful;  to  all  intents  and  purposes  she  was  not 
there. 

She  had  opened  the  book  of  life,  become  intensely 
interested  in  the  number  of  its  chapters,  and  had 
never  read  a  word.  She  might  just  as  well  be  buried. 

.     .     Well,  she  would  be,  one  day. 
189 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

He  decided  at  once  that  he  himself  would  be 
cremated.  Then  Henry  pulled  himself  together, 
and  realized  that  this  was  neither  the  time  nor  the 
place  for  soliloquy. 

Lady  Blake  had  risen  and  Perrin  was  holding  the 
door  open  as  the  ladies  retired  to  the  drawing-room. 
Later,  in  three  cars,  they  were  to  motor  down  to  the 
landing  stage  for  the  dance  on  the  yacht.  Molly, 
with  Octavia  chatting  affably  into  her  ear,  was  con- 
vinced that  she  was  a  success. 

Left  alone  at  the  table,  the  three  male  members 
of  the  party  remained  for  some  moments  in  silence. 
Gerald  felt  unaccountably  awkward,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  pondered,  not  without  wonder,  on  the 
trick  of  fate  which  had  secured  for  his  uninspired 
uncle  such  a  beautiful  Duchess.  The  Professor  was 
engaged  with  the  immediate  future.  What  was 
Octavia  going  to  do  about  the  dance?  He  remem- 
bered with  cold  horror  Henry's  remark  about  the 
evening  papers.  The  Duke  was  thinking  of  nothing 
at  all.  He  cracked  his  nuts  and  drank  his  port,  con- 
scious of  a  vague  feeling  of  triumph.  He  felt  much 
as  an  amateur  who,  buying  a  picture  on  trust  from 
an  obscure  dealer,  discovers,  on  its  arrival,  tha*t  he 
has  had  a  lucky  accident  and  that  the  forebodings  of 
his  friends  are  not  to  be  realized. 

Gerald  rose  suddenly.  All  at  once  it  had  ap- 
peared to  him  that  he  was  not  wanted. 

"Excuse  me,  Uncle  Henry,"  he  said,  "I  want  to 
see  about  my  gloves." 

The  Duke  nodded  carelessly  as  the  boy  went  out. 
Peter  looked  up  as  the  door  shut. 

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CRUSADERS 

"Henry,"  he  said,  "you  told  me  once  that  if  ever 
you  did  anything  grotesque,  I  was  to  remember  that 
somewhere  behind  that  lay  your  theory  of  living. 
Is  there  some  .  .  .  some  creed  behind  this 
marriage?" 

The  Duke  put  down  his  glass.  He  cracked  and 
excavated  another  nut  before  replying. 

"There  is  an  ideal  behind  it,  Peter,"  he  said,  "as 
there  should  be  behind  every  marriage." 

"But  not,"  asked  the  Professor,  "the  ordinarily 
accepted  ideal?" 

"What  is  that?"  asked  the  Duke. 

"Love,"  replied  his  friend;  "or,  at  least,  com- 
panionship." 

Henry  was  silent.  When  he  spoke  it  was  to  be 
irrelevant. 

"What  do  you  think  of  my  wife,  Peter?"  he 
asked. 

"She  is  very  beautiful,"  he  answered;  "very 
beautiful  indeed." 

The  Duke  nodded. 

"Expert  opinion,"  he  said,  "is  always  desirable. 
You,  of  course,  Peter,  are  a  connoisseur;  you  can 
tell  whether  she  is  only  'chic'  or  whether  she  has 
'flair'  as  well.  You  can  tell  whether  she  is  fast  or 
slow,  vicious  or  good-tempered.  There  is  some- 
thing, after  all,  in  graduating  for  life  in  Continental 
cafes." 

He  smiled  at  Peter  over  his  coffee,  and  the  Pro- 
fessor smiled  back.  He  recognized  the  raillery  un- 
der the  words,  and  he  knew  that  the  Duke  was  try- 
ing to  lead  him  away  into  the  paths  of  small  talk. 

191 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

But  Peter  was  puzzled  and  serious.  He  had  no 
intention  of  being  side-tracked  in  this  way. 

"I  know  nothing  of  your  wife,  Henry,"  he  said, 
"except  that  you  should  not  have  married  her.  You 
see,  I  am  relying  on  your  granting  me  the  privileges 
of  a  very  old  friend." 

"They  are  yours,  Peter,"  said  the  Duke,  "but  I 
am  afraid  I  cannot  gratify  your  curiosity.  My  mar- 
riage is  one  of  the  many  things  in  the  universe  which 
even  a  scientist  must  take  for  granted." 

"At  least  answer  one  question.  You  do  not  love 
her?" 

"If  you  will  tell  me  what  love  is,  I  will  answer 
you."  ' 

The  Professor  pushed  back  his  chair. 

"If  you  do  not  know,  I  am  already  answered," 
he  said. 

"Peter,"  said  the  Duke  slowly,  "you  and  I  are 
very  old  friends;  in  many  ways  very  deep  friends. 
But  we  have  never  ploughed  up  each  other's  natures 
to  see  what  sort  of  soil  lies  underneath.  There  are 
some  friends  who  can  do  that;  but  it  is  very  risky. 
We  know  each  other's  lives,  you  and  I,  but  of  each 
other's  souls  we  know  nothing;  it  would  be  fatal  to 
try  to  discover  one  another  so  late  in  the  day.  But 
this  much  I  will  tell  you.  I  have  a  creed  according 
to  which  I  have  tried  to  live  my  life.  That  creed, 
like  all  that  are  anything  more  than  pose,  has  now 
become  a  crusade.  My  standard  is  a  banner — lily- 
white,  without  device.  My  motto,  'Simplicity.'  I 
want  to  lead  a  simple  life.  I  want  my  conscience  to 
ask  simple  questions  and  my  actions  to  answer  them 

192 


CRUSADERS 

simply.  I  want  to  contrive  to  do  without  the  amaz- 
ing superstructure  which  civilization  has  built  up 
about  us — cults  and  rules  and  problems  which  we 
create  merely  to  waste  time  over.  Life  is  not  a 
question  of  how  much  one  can  get  into  it,  but  how 
much  one  can  push  out  of  it.  Our  churches  en- 
deavor to  occupy  God,  whereas  it  is  my  belief  that 
God  has  produced  plenty  to  occupy  us,  but  we  have 
made  such  a  labyrinth  of  our  lives  that  we  have  no 
time  for  Him."  He  drained  his  glass  and  wiped 
his  lips.  "That  is  all  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  Peter," 
he  said,  "and  somewhere  behind  all  that  you  will  find 
the  reason  for  my  marriage.  You  have  my  per- 
mission to  look  for  it." 

The  Professor  made  a  gesture  of  disgust. 

"Your  creed  can  be  summed  up  in  one  word, 
Henry,"  he  said.  "Laziness." 

The  Duke  smiled  at  him,  and  for  a  long  time 
Peter  said  nothing.  He  gazed  into  the  bottom  of 
his  glass  at  the  little  ruby  circle  that  reflected  the 
electric  lights.  So,  in  his  marriage,  as  in  everything 
else,  Henry  had  been  introspective.  The  Professor 
had  a  mental  picture  of  Molly,  full  of  vitality,  alive, 
the  slave  of  no  monastic  shibboleth,  ready  to  enjoy 
the  riches  of  the  world — its  jewels,  its  pleasures — 
above  all,  its  passions  and  its  love.  And  Henry  saw 
none  of  it.  Yet  he  had  never  suspected  him  of  being 
among  the  Pharisees.  He  looked  up  suddenly  and 
stared  at  the  Duke  as  he  lay  back  in  his  chair  with 
that  look  of  grave  contentment  which  had  so  often 
irritated  his  friend  when  they  had  been  engaged 
in  some  scientific  controversy.  "My  God!"  he 

193 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

thought.  "The  man  is  the  very  apotheosis  of  the 
Prig." 

He  suddenly  flung  a  question  across  the  table. 

"And  what  about  her?"  he  asked. 

The  Duke  looked  puzzled.  A  look  of  distress 
came  into  his  eyes. 

"Her?"  he  echoed. 

"Yes,"  said  Peter.  "Your  simple  life  is  so  sim- 
ple that  it  reduces  everything  to  the  figure  one. 
What  about  her?" 

He  rose  and  went  out;  a  feeling  of  intense  an- 
noyance came  over  him.  It  was  incredible — such 
selfishness.  Yet  Peter  had  never  thought  of  anyone 
else  but  himself  throughout  his  life.  But  that  is  the 
way  of  folk. 

The  Duke  sat  still  in  his  chair,  a  troubled  look 
in  his  gray  eyes. 

"What  about  her?    What  about  her?" 

Suddenly  the  stem  of  his  wine  glass  snapped  be- 
tween his  fingers.  He  sat  quite  still.  After  all, 
Peter  had  been  the  first  to  deal  a  serious  blow  at 
the  crusade  for  the  lily-white  banner.  Was  it  a 
pose,  after  all?  "What  about  her?" 

He  suddenly  realized  that  he  had  been  thrusting 
aside  this  question  from  the  very  first.  Yet  he  sup- 
posed that  she  was  happy.  Why  not?  He  did  not 
trouble  to  consider  whether  happiness  was  a  nega- 
tive or  a  positive  proposition. 

And  yet  he  could  not  feel  satisfied.  Supposing 
she  was  not  happy?  Well,  what  more  could  he  do? 
At  least  he  had  not  deceived  her.  He  had  never 

194 


CRUSADERS 

pretended  to  be  in  love.  In  love?  Why  on  earth 
did  people  demand  of  a  man  that  he  should  in- 
evitably produce  a  certain  set  of  emotions  at  a  cer- 
tain age  ?  He  drifted  off  into  an  absurd  analysis  of 
Love  which  left  it  with  about  the  same  status  as 
malignant  influenza.  Then  he  rose  and  lighted  an- 
other cigar.  After  all,  he  thought,  perhaps  he  was 
a  prig.  Perhaps  he  was  in  the  habit  of  putting  a 
reserve  price  on  his  own  virtues — so  high  that  they 
became  unmarketable — hothouse  blooms.  He  knew 
now,  at  any  rate,  that  he  deliberately  wished  only 
to  matter  to  himself — that  he  had  always  wished  it 
so.  Peter,  whom  he  had  often  found  himself  de- 
spising, could  not  be  said  to  be  a  really  bad  man, 
merely  an  amiable  ordinary  sinner — and  he  was  very 
human,  he  radiated  much  farther.  .  .  . 

This  girl,  then,  whom  he  had  married — he  had 
attached  no  meaning  to  her  at  all.  He  had  smiled 
indulgently  when  she  had  told  him  that  she  loved 
him.  He  remembered  that  his  smile  was  the  same 
and  his  feelings  the  same  when  Mary  had  com- 
plained of  the  fever  of  measles.  It  was  a  "You'll- 
be-better-soon"  smile.  Now  he  saw  that  Molly  was 
not  merely  a  collection  of  curious  clothes  hung  on 
to  something.  She  was  definitely  in  opposition  to 
him.  She  was  determined  that  he  should  matter  to 
someone  else  besides  himself.  She,  too,  was  fighting 
a  crusade.  Its  end  was  that  they  should  matter  to 
each  other.  It  struck  Henry  with  sudden  and  vio- 
lent force  that  his  life  had  suddenly  changed.  In 
his  usual  introspective  way  he  cast  back  for  a  prece- 
dent to  his  feelings.  He  found  it  suddenly.  It  was 

195 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

when  he  left  the  nursery  for  the  first  time  and  went 
to  a  preparatory  school. 

He  remembered  that  it  had  been  most  unpleasant. 

But  any  further  reflections  which  the  Duke  might 
have  been  inclined  to  make  were  cut  short  by  the 
entrance  of  his  wife.  Molly  had  thought  of  nothing 
else  since  dinner  than  her  husband's  verdict  on  her 
behavior.  Now  she  came  straight  up  to  him  with 
characteristic  simplicity  and  said: 

"Did  I  get  through  it  all  right?" 

"Perfectly,"  answered  Henry  mechanically. 

"It  isn't  any  use  for  me  to  ask  you  questions," 
said  Molly  firmly,  "if  you  are  going  to  answer  them 
like  that." 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  me  to  say?" 

"I  want  you  to  tell  me  what  I  did  wrong,  of 
course." 

The  Duke  smiled. 

"My  dear  child,  what  does  it  matter?"  he  said. 
"What  on  earth  can  be  the  importance  of  a  set  of 
arbitrary  rules  for  eating?  Short  of  making  un- 
pleasant sucking  noises  with  one's  soup,  the  whole 
bag  of  tricks  is  manifestly  of  no  account." 

"I  dare  say,"  said  Molly,  "if  you  live  alone.  If 
you  don't,  you  must  eat  like  the  next  person." 

"Why?"  asked  Henry. 

"Why?    Because,  of  course,  you  must." 

"A  woman's  reason." 

"You  don't  want  a  reason  for  a  thing  like  that." 

"On  the  contrary,"  returned  the  Duke,  "there 
should  be  reason  in  everything." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Molly,  "if  you  really  want  rea- 
196 


CRUSADERS 

sons,  I  suppose  it  is  that  it's  such  a  little  thing  that 
it  isn't  worth  being  different  about;  at  home  we  used 
to  throw  salt  over  our  shoulders  when  we  spilt  any. 
I  don't  know  which  one  originally  believed  in  it,  but 
it  wasn't  worth  while  upsetting  'em  by  not  doing  it, 
was  it?  Same  with  the  knives  and  forks  an'  things. 
If  everybody  did  it  their  own  way,  it  might  do.  But 
if  only  one  does,  nobody  knows  which  way  to  look. 
I  know  as  much  as  that,  anyway.  'Tisn't  that  they're 
ashamed  of  you,  it's  because  they're  sorry  you're  un- 
happy 'cause  you  don't  know  the  rules." 

"So  that  when  it  sends  him  to  prison,  Society  is 
not  ashamed  of  the  burglar,  but  of  the  system?" 

"Oh,  what  do  I  know  about  burglars  and  So- 
ciety?" said  Molly  a  little  impatiently.  "I  want  you 
to  tell  me  things." 

"What  things?"  he  asked. 

She  hesitated  for  a  moment  and  he  noted  the  rest- 
less movement  of  her  fingers. 

"Well,"  she  began  slowly,  "I  .  .  .  I've  a  dread- 
ful feeling  there's  too  much  of  me  showing;  I've 
never  done  it  before,  and  I  suppose  you  get  used  to 
it.  But  I  want  to  know  whether  there  was  more 
bare  of  me  than  of  anyone  else.  You  see,  I  haven't 
got  anyone  else  I  can  ask,"  she  added,  in  quick 
apology. 

"You  can  be  perfectly  certain,"  answered  Henry 
gravely,  "that  any  frock  of  Mary's  will  be  exactly 
as  low  or  as  high  as  the  latest  decree  of  the  gentle- 
men in  Paris  who  manage  these  absurdities  allows." 

"I'm  glad  it's  all  right,"  said  Molly  with  a  sigh. 
"But  why  do  you  think  everything  is  absurd?" 

197 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Well,  are  not  most  things?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  never  think  about  them,"  she 
answered,  "but  I  remember  once  I  went  to  an  exhi- 
bition where  there  were  queer  looking-glasses  that 
made  people  all  shapes,  and  there  was  a  very  solemn 
man  behind  me  who  said,  'If  we  were  all  like  that, 
straight-backed  men  would  be  ugly.'  I  couldn't 
think  what  he  meant — but  I  did  later.  If  everybody 
agreed  with  you,  this  frock  would  be  absurd;  as  no- 
body does,  it  isn't." 

This  was  exactly  what  had  happened  at  his  pre- 
paratory school,  thought  the  Duke.  He  was  being 
forced  to  detach  himself  from  his  ...  well,  yes, 
it  seemed  more  than  ever  like  a  pose. 

"Lilliput  and  Brobdingnag,"  he  laughed.  "I 
didn't  know  you  thought  so  much.  It  isn't  fashion- 
able." 

"Nor  am  I,"  she  returned.  "That  is  why  I  must 
be  taught  how.  If  only  Lady  Blake " 

Suddenly  a  great  rage  surged  up  in  Henry. 

"There  is  nothing  Octavia  can  teach  you,"  he  said 
sternly;  "nothing  at  all." 

"But  there  is — lots,"  she  answered,  looking  up  at 
him  sharply. 

He  stretched  his  arms  a  little  wearily.  It  had 
started  as  a  brilliant  and  quixotic  romance,  this  mar- 
riage of  his.  Was  it  rapidly  becoming  a  common- 
place misalliance  where  relatives  with  a  sense  of 
duty  were  laboriously  to  teach  the  bride  her  new 
tricks  ? 

"Why  can't  you  go  on  believing  in  your  silly 
books?"  he  said  suddenly. 

198 


CRUSADERS 

"One  day,"  she  said  with  a  quaint  shyness,  "I 
hope  I  shall." 

And  he  realized  with  a  sense  of  impotent  irrita- 
tion that  that  future  date  was  tied  up  with  the  in- 
cubation period  of  the  pestilent  disease,  Love. 

"It's  a  shame  to  bother  you,"  she  said,  quickly 
divining  his  embarrassment,  "but  I  came  here  be- 
cause I  may  not  have  another  opportunity  of  being 
alone  with  you ;  I  want  to  know — what  are  you  going 
to  do  with  me?" 

"Do  with  you?" 

"Yes.  What  do  you  want  me  to  do  when  you've 
gone  ?  I  ...  I  can't  go  home  again,  you  know." 

"Your  allowance " 

"Oh,  hell !"  she  cut  in  distractedly.  "That's  not 
what  I'm  thinking  about."  She  recollected  herself 
suddenly.  "Sorry!"  she  said.  "I  oughtn't  to  have 
said  that." 

"Why  not?"  said  the  Duke.     "You  meant  it." 

"My  allowance  is  more'n  I'll  ever  spend.  What 
I  want  to  know  is,  where'll  I  go?  What'll  I  do? 
How'll  I  learn  to  be  a  lady?" 

"I  don't  want  you  to  learn  to  be  anything.  If 
you  do,  you  will  make  yourself  a  dustbin  for  other 
people's  foibles — that  is  all." 

"But  when  you  come  back?" 

"You  can  chew  your  table-napkin  for  all  I  care." 

His  egoism  reared  itself  before  her  like  a  vast 
wall.  That  so  kind  a  man  could  be  so  obtuse  I 

"But,"  she  said,  "it  is  I  that  want  to  behave 
properly." 

"It  is  a  case,"  he  said,  "where  the  will  is  the 
199 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

deed."  He  saw  suddenly  a  dreadful  vision  of  Molly 
as  an  automatic  doll  with  the  jerky  utterance  and 
mechanical  gestures  of  Eliza  Doolittle.  It  appalled 
him.  Molly,  for  her  part,  saw  that  she  did  not  in- 
terest him  in  the  least.  The  frock,  the  hair  .  .  .. 
all  had  counted  for  nothing.  She  was  merely  a 
problem.  He  would  solve  her  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion and  go  happily  on  his  way.  She  was  to  be  left 
behind  to  build  a  fool's  paradise  for  herself  out  of 
cheap  novels.  She  saw  the  enormity  of  his  charity 
when  she  realized  that  this  was  all  he  imagined  she 
was  worth. 

And  she  had  thought  she  was  to  be  allowed  to 
make  him  happy  ...  at  least,  to  try.  Now  she 
was  only  to  be  solved. 

"I'll  write  to  Padwick,  my  solicitor,  about  you," 
he  was  saying.  "He  will  fix  you  up  wherever  you 
want  to  stay.  Of  course,  you  have  got  to  be  very 
comfortable  and  happy." 

Oh,  of  course !  Had  he  the  remotest  idea  of 
what  happiness  was?  She  said  nothing.  She  had 
thought  he  would  have  realized  that  this  was  the 
last  time  she  would  see  him  for  six  months,  that 
she  would  want  to  know  what  he  wanted  her  to  do, 
that  perhaps  he  might  feel  a  little  sorry  for  her. 
Apparently  he  felt  no  emotion  of  any  kind — she 
might  be  a  puzzling  feature  in  one  of  his  reptiles. 
She  remembered  that  she  had  never  seen  him  dis- 
play any  feeling  over  anything.  He  stood  now,  his 
eyes  fixed  dreamily  on  a  point  of  the  wall  just  above 
the  clock.  His  thick  hair  was  a  little  untidy,  his  lips 
a  little  curved.  She  could  see  that  his  thoughts  were 

200 


CRUSADERS 

far  away — in  the  South  Seas,  perhaps.  Why  did 
she  love  him?  Not  for  his  ascetic,  self-centred  per- 
sonality— it  was  all  too  cold.  Not  even  for  his 
kindness,  for  dimly  she  began  to  perceive  that  that 
too  sprang  from  a  certain  disgust,  a  shrinking  from 
the  unpleasant  things  of  life.  Yet  love  him  she  did, 
and  that  as  much  as  ever  before,  when  the  glamor  of 
her  dream-monger  blinded  her  to  the  impenetrabil- 
ity of  the  man  himself.  And  suddenly,  though  only 
in  part,  she  realized  that  it  was  something  behind 
those  gray  eyes  that  appealed  to  her,  something  that 
had  never  come  out  into  the  light  of  day,  perhaps 
because  there  had  never  yet  been  anyone  strong 
enough  to  drag  it  forth.  All  at  once  she  felt  the 
desires  of  the  pioneer — she  would  be  the  one  to  ex- 
plore the  depths  of  those  steady  eyes — she  would 
never  give  up — she  would  be  indefatigable.  Some- 
how, she  thought  suddenly  of  the  only  time  she  had 
ever  been  to  the  seaside.  A  man  had  been  almost 
drowned,  and  they  had  spent  four  hours  trying  to 
bring  the  life  back  into  his  body;  toiling  until  the 
succorers  themselves  were  well  nigh  spent.  But  the 
man  had  lived.  Then  she  remembered  how  lonely 
that  half-dead  victim  of  the  sea  had  looked,  every- 
one save  he  pulsing  with  life  and  movement  and  en- 
deavor. He  had  been  a  thing  apart — alone.  She 
stole  another  look  at  the  man  standing  by  her  side, 
and  with  a  start  realized  that  he  was  lonely,  too. 

And  her  intuition  was  right,  for  Henry  was — and 
had  always  been — a  very  lonely  man.  He  had  never 
realized  that  mortals  were  as  dependent  upon  each 
other's  souls  as  upon  each  other's  bodies.  He  had 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

seen  only  the  barrenness  of  the  life  into  which  he 
had  been  born,  and  he  was  trying  to  live  by  bread 
alone.  His  soul  was  starving  because  he  had  in- 
herited the  whole  world  and  none  of  Heaven.  He 
had  not  been  so  foolish  as  to  accept  the  world  as  a 
substitute,  but  he  had  not  been  wise  enough  to  find 
a  heaven  for  himself,  and  though  he  had  told  her 
that  there  was  nothing  on  the  earth  like  good  dreams, 
he  had  never  been  able  to  make  realities  of  his  own. 
So  he  hung  poised  between  earth  and  sky,  touching 
neither,  a  waif,  ignorant  of  his  own  beggardom,  a 
waif  who  was  gradually  giving  up  even  the  tearful 
ecstasy  of  crying  for  the  moon. 

But  Molly,  being  one  of  God's  real  babies  who 
hung  on  to  a  star  with  her  hands  and  dabbled  her 
feet  delightedly  in  the  gutter  at  the  same  time,  saw 
only  that  he  stood  alone,  and  did  not  give  herself 
the  trouble  of  asking  why.  Now,  other  people's 
loneliness  is  sometimes  the  open  sesame  to  a  woman's 
heart,  and  Molly,  who  had  already  given  the  whole 
of  hers  to  her  dream-monger,  discovered  all  of  a 
sudden  a  little  piece  which  had  been  overlooked,  and 
sympathy  and  tears  and  hope  for  him  welled  up  in 
her  all  at  once,  so  that  she  suddenly  tiptoed  and 
kissed  him  longingly,  lingeringly,  on  the  lips;  a  kiss 
that  was  the  raising  of  the  standard  of  her  crusade, 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  a  creed  or  a  formula, 
a  circumstance  for  which,  it  may  be,  it  was  a  thou- 
sandfold more  strong. 

As  for  Henry,  he  patted  her  cheek  good-naturedly 
and  did  not  realize  that  he  had  become  an  object 
of  pity. 

202 


CRUSADERS 

Anyway,  the  net  result  of  all  this  tangled  psy- 
chology was  that  Molly  decided  that  he  was  lonely, 
and  Henry  himself  became  the  object  of  a  cure;  so 
that  both  husband  and  wife  now  had  their  own  pri- 
vate crusade,  and  to  Molly,  at  any  rate,  the  ambi- 
tion to  make  him  "love  her  like  hell"  was  renewed 
a  thousandfold. 

After  this,  the  first  spontaneous  kiss  that  she  had 
ever  given  him,  Molly  felt  a  fervent  desire  to  get  out 
of  the  room  before  he  said  anything  to  spoil  the  mo- 
ment. She  gave  a  little  laugh,  half  nervous,  half 
triumphant,  and  stepped  out  of  the  door  before 
Henry  realized  that  she  was  gone.  When  he  was 
alone  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  suddenly,  for  all 
the  world  like  a  dog  shaking  water  from  its  back, 
and  then  threw  the  end  of  his  cigar  into  the  fire- 
place. It  was  time,  he  thought,  to  go  down  to  the 
yacht.  What  a  nuisance  the  dance  was!  How 
ridiculously  the  world  took  its  pleasures ! 

His  mind  was  exclusively  engaged  on  thoughts 
reptilian  as  he  drove  down  to  the  landing-stage 
alone,  for  Henry  never  waited  for  anyone,  any  more 
than  he  expected  anyone  to  wait  for  him.  His 
thoughts  were  still  in  the  South  Seas  as  he  climbed 
up  to  the  chart-house  of  the  "Cobra,"  after  returning 
the  salute  of  Captain  Phillips,  the  skipper,  and  sat 
down,  with  a  feeling  of  splendid  isolation,  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  little  room.  His  hand  stretched  out  idly 
and  picked  up  a  book  which  lay  beside  him.  Cap- 
tain Phillips  was  a  family  man,  and  his  wife  and 
children  had  but  just  left  the  yacht  after  saying 
good-by  to  him.  This  book  had  been  a  parting  gift 

203 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

to  one  of  his  children,  and  had  been  left  behind  by 
mistake.  Henry  looked  dreamily  at  its  cover  and 
read  the  title:  "Fairy  Tales  for  Little  Folk."  In 
five  minutes  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  was  com- 
pletely immersed  in  it. 

Meanwhile,  Molly,  still  marvelling  a  little  at  her 
new-born  courage,  had  gone  upstairs  determined  to 
ask  Mary  to  lend  her  something  in  the  nature  of  a 
cloak  to  wear  on  the  way  down  to  the  yacht.  As  she 
passed  the  door  of  her  own  room  she  decided  to  go 
in  and  see  whether  her  appearance  was  still  com- 
pletely undamaged.  She  was  adding  those  finishing 
touches  to  an  already  completed  toilet,  to  which,  it 
appears,  there  is  no  end,  when  she  suddenly  heard 
the  key  turn  in  the  door. 

In  a  moment  she  was  across  the  room,  trying  the 
handle.  She  was  locked  in.  Down  the  passage  she 
heard  footsteps.  She  knew  at  once  that  they  be- 
longed to  Octavia.  l/i  a  moment  she  realized  that 
Lady  Blake  was  determined  she  should  not  go  to 
the  dance.  She  stood  absolutely  still  for  a  moment. 
She  had  not  been  such  a  success,  then,  at  dinner, 
after  all.  A  fury  of  rage  welled  up  in  her.  She 
wanted  to  scream,  bring  everyone  to  her  door,  and 
insist  upon  being  released.  But  this,  she  realized, 
would  only  prove  conclusively  that  she  could  not 
behave — that  she  had  no  dignity. 

She  crossed  and  sat  down  on  the  bed.  She  was 
not  to  see  him  again,  then.  By  the  time  the  door 
was  open  Henry  would  be  far  away  on  the  high  seas, 
and  she — she  would  be  left  to  fight  a  long  battle 
with  Octavia  and  Octavia's  entourage.  She  shivered 

204 


CRUSADERS 

a  little  and  looked  out  of  the  window.  It  was  dark 
now,  and  far  away  the  illuminated  decks  of  the  yacht 
twinkled  like  a  little  constellation  on  the  water. 
Well,  she  must  not  let  him  down.  She  must  be  dig- 
nified. She  drew  down  the  blind,  for  somehow  those 
little  twinkling  lights  seemed  rather  like  a  bad  joke. 
So  she  wasn't  to  have  her  chance  to  show  Henry  that 
she  could  hold  her  head  high  in  the  Society  that  sur- 
rounded him.  And  there  was  something  else  that 
this  action  of  Octavia's  showed.  After  Henry  was 
gone,  the  war  was  to  go  on.  Undoubtedly  Lady 
Blake  would  try  to  get  rid  of  her.  Could  she  do 
it?  Molly  knew  little  of  the  law  or  its  power.  Per- 
haps Henry  might  miss  her  and  send  for  her  from 
the  yacht.  But  no — Octavia  would  tell  him  she  had 
been  afraid  to  come.  Afraid!  She  clenched  her 
fists  in  a  paroxysm  of  rage. 

Suddenly  she  caught  sight  of  herself  again  in  the 
great  pier-glass.  For  some  moments  she  gazed  at 
her  own  reflection.  It  seemed  to  comfort  her  not  a 
little.  After  all,  she  was  not  entirely  unarmed. 

Above  all,  she  must  not  disgrace  him. 

In  the  hall  Peter  was  struggling  into  a  big  fur 
coat. 

"Where  is  Uncle  Henry?"  asked  Mary,  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs,  rosy  with  anticipations. 

"It  appears,"  said  the  Professor  panting,  "that 
he  has  gone  on  alone." 

"How  like  him!"  laughed  the  girl,  and  then  in 
answer  to  a  call  from  Gerald,  who  was  already 
seated  with  his  cosmopolitan  in  the  second  car,  she 
hurried  down  the  steps  into  the  night. 

205 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Peter  was  to  go  down  alone  with  Octavia.  She 
appeared  now,  majestically  gowned,  and  eyed  the 
Professor  for  a  few  moments. 

"Have  you  everything  on  board  for  the  voyage?" 
she  asked  suddenly. 

"Why,  of  course,"  returned  Peter.  "The  last  of 
the  packages  went  down  yesterday." 

"I  only  asked,"  added  Octavia,  "because  it  would 
be  a  pity  if  you  had  to  put  back  for  anything." 

He  understood  and  said  nothing. 

"By  the  way,"  she  went  on  smoothly,  "the  Duch- 
ess has  a  headache  and  will  not  be  able  to  attend 
the  dance." 

The  Professor  looked  up  quickly. 

"She  seemed  quite  well  at  dinner,"  he  hazarded. 

"Perhaps  she  ate  too  much,"  said  Octavia,  button- 
ing her  glove. 

Peter  looked  her  full  in  the  face,  but  she  did  not 
waver. 

"Octavia,"  he  said  at  last,  "is  it  fair?" 

As  you  remember,  he  was  the  most  susceptible 
man  in  the  house.  Octavia  returned  his  look  un- 
flinchingly. 

"The  question  is,  Peter,"  she  said,  "is  it  neces- 
sary?' 

For  a  moment  their  eyes  held  each  other,  then 
the  Professor's  dropped.  He  felt  vaguely  for  his 
best  friend,  his  large  silk  handkerchief. 

"If  we  don't  hurry,  Peter,"  said  Octavia,  in  level 
tones,  "we  shall  be  late." 

He  held  the  door  open  for  her. 

206 


CHAPTER   XVII 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN 

THE  scene  on  the  yacht  was  one  of  those  which 
Society  journalists  love  to  describe  as  brilliant  but 
which  are  in  reality  a  trifle  dull.  Everybody  looked 
very  expensive,  but  nobody  very  expressive.  Some- 
how, it  was  the  kind  of  assembly  that  one  instinc- 
tively reckons  up  in  cash  value  rather  than  on  any 
other  basis.  But  it  was  a  genuine  aristocracy,  for 
their  cash  was  on  their  backs  rather  than  in  their 
banks. 

Meanwhile,  they  were  experiencing  the  immense 
and  unlooked-for  relief  of  having  something  to  talk 
about.  The  triumph  of  the  evening  came  to  him 
or  to  her  who  discovered  someone  who  had  not  read 
an  evening  paper.  Octavia  had  made  no  remark 
about  the  marriage,  and  in  the  circumstances  no  one 
cared  to  broach  the  subject  with  her.  As  for  the 
Duke  himself,  he  had  not  put  in  an  appearance  at 
all,  which  was  causing  Octavia  not  a  little  uneasii 
ness  and  the  guests  a  topic  of  endless  speculation. 

Mr.  Pardoe-Vine  endeavored  for  some  time  to 
buttonhole  Peter  with  the  intention  of  forcing  the 
truth  out  of  him  and  being  the  first  to  make  an 
official  statement.  But  as  the  Professor,  who  hated 
the  old  gentleman  more  than  anyone  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, because  they  had  exactly  the  same  bad  habits, 

207 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

avoided  him  like  the  plague  the  whole  evening,  the 
unfortunate  bachelor  was  bound  to  remain  among 
the  speculators. 

He  was  talking  to  Lord  Hartbloom,  who,  shaking 
his  head  reproachfully,  remarked  that  "marriages 
of  that  kind  were  not  fair  to  the  Peerage."  Lord 
Hartbloom's  grandfather  had  been  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  a  hereditary  legislator  at  a  stiff  price, 
which  he  had  been  able  to  pay  as  a  result  of  Govern- 
ment contracts  during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  In 
order  to  establish  a  family  tradition,  it  was  said 
that  none  of  the  Hartblooms  had  been  allowed  to 
laugh  aloud  since  the  Reform  Act. 

Neither  Gerald  nor  Mary  would  have  thought  of 
volunteering  any  kind  of  information  on  a  family 
matter  such  as  Henry's  marriage,  without  receiving 
first  official  instructions  from  Octavia.  But  with  the 
arrival  of  the  Countess  of  Edgeware,  some  statement 
was  bound  to  be  made. 

The  Countess  was  an  old  lady  of  seventy.  One 
of  her  many  grievances  was  that  she  was  Henry's 
godmother.  Although  long  past  the  period  when 
she  should  have  settled  down  into  a  dignified  old  age, 
Lady  Edgeware  had  never  abandoned  her  efforts  to 
cheat  time  of  ten  years  by  wearing  a  mask  of  pomade 
and  enamel.  The  result  was  that  she  looked  like  a 
gargoyle.  She  had  divorced  her  first  husband  be- 
cause he  insisted  upon  walking  round  Berkeley 
Square  in  his  dressing  gown.  Her  second  husband, 
the  Earl  of  Edgeware,  was  an  old  gentleman  whose 
bones  had  become  too  stiff  for  the  hunting  field,  and 
who  was  therefore  only  interested  in  the  next  world, 

208 


LADIES    AND    GENTLEMEN 

where  there  was  the  odd  chance  that  he  might  become 
a  supernatural  M.F.H.  Heaven  without  horses  it 
was  beyond  his  power  to  conceive.  As  for  Lady 
Edgeware,  she  was  well  known  as  the  most  inveterate 
marriage  broker  in  London.  She  had  made  several 
attempts  upon  Henry's  life,  and  her  lack  of  success 
had  caused  her  to  look  upon  his  ultimate  marriage  as 
the  crowning  glory  of  her  activities.  The  announce- 
ment of  his  wedding,  therefore,  which  had  been 
maliciously  read  to  her  by  her  husband,  she  felt  not 
only  as  a  social  disaster  of  the  first  magnitude,  but 
also  as  a  personal  slight  to  herself. 

As  she  bore  down  on  the  spot  where  Lord  Hart- 
bloom  was  still  holding  forth  on  the  obligations  of 
caste  he  happened  to  catch  sight  of  her  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye,  and  with  a  muttered  apology  dived 
incontinently  down  the  companion-way  toward  the 
saloon.  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  slower  of  initiative,  was 
caught  and  immediately  buttonholed. 

"What!"  said  the  Countess.     "Are  you  here?" 

The  old  gentleman  smiled  wanly. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  "  'I  go  everywhere  and  do 
nothing.'  Was  it  the  Duke  of  Wellington  who  said 
that,  or  someone  else?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  returned  the  old  lady. 
"You  are  one  of  our  club  men,"  she  said  in  a  thrilling 
whisper.  "What  is  everybody  saying?" 

Mr.  Pardoe-Vine  had  no  intention  of  being  drawn 
into  a  discussion  of  his  host's  marriage.  He  was 
loyal,  if  he  was  critical. 

"What  does  everyone  always  say,  Lady  Edge- 
ware?"  he  said  airily.  "As  usual,  the  young  people 

209 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

are  talking  seriously  about  Death,  and  the  old  are 
talking  enthusiastically  about  Life." 

Lady  Edgeware  rapped  impatiently  on  the  rail 
with  her  fan.  Then  she  shook  her  finger  at  the  old 
gentleman  so  that  it  exploded  in  a  series  of  rheumatic 
reports. 

"That's  not  what  I  want  to  know  at  all,"  she  said. 
"I  want  to  know  what  people  are  saying  about 
Henry's  marriage." 

"Oh,  that!"  returned  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine.  "Charm- 
ing— quite  charming!"  And  murmuring  that  it  was 
high  time  they  presented  themselves  before  Lady 
Blake,  he  adroitly  steered  the  baffled  Countess  to  the 
companion-way  and  down  into  the  saloon. 

Meanwhile,  Octavia  had  escaped  for  a  few  mo- 
ments from  her  duties  as  hostess,  and,  by  this  time 
thoroughly  uneasy  at  the  non-appearance  of  the 
Duke,  and  connecting  it  vaguely  in  her  mind  with 
some  hitch  in  her  efforts  to  circumvent  the  Duchess, 
had  sent  for  Dunn,  and  discovering  from  him  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  whereabouts  of  his  master,  had 
ordered  him  to  search  the  most  unlikely  places  in  the 
ship,  and  if  the  Duke  failed  to  materialize,  to  return 
to  Wynninghame  Towers  and  find  out  what  had  hap- 
pened to  him. 

"Peter,"  she  said  to  the  Professor,  "I  shall  only 
feel  quite  happy  when  you  and  Henry  are  among  the 
cannibals." 

"But  it  is  a  desert  island,"  he  protested. 

"All  the  better,"  retorted  Lady  Blake.  "If  there 
was  Society  of  any  sort,  Henry  would  be  certain  to 
get  into  trouble." 

210 


LADIES    AND    GENTLEMEN 

At  this  moment  the  Countess  appeared  with  Mr. 
Pardoe-Vine  as  escort,  and  Lady  Octavia  realized 
that  the  moment  had  come  when  she  was  to  be  forced 
to  make  a  statement  of  some  kind. 

Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  after  delivering  up  his  burden, 
disappeared  as  quickly  as  good  manners  allowed  in 
the  direction  of  the  supper-room.  Peter  wandered 
out  on  deck  again,  where  the  strains  of  the  orchestra 
drew  him  like  a  magnet — and  so,  since  all  introduc- 
tions and  arrivals  had  now  been  dealt  with,  Lady 
Blake  and  the  Countess  were  left  alone. 

"Yes,"  Octavia  was  saying,  "the  marriage  is,  of 
course,  quite  impossible." 

"Lady  Blake,"  snapped  the  Countess,  "it  is  an 
absolute  catastrophe." 

"Worse  mistakes  have  been  corrected,"  returned 
Octavia  calmly;  "it  is  all  the  easier  because  Henry 
is  not  in  the  least  in  love  with  her." 

"What!"  cried  Lady  Edgeware.  "Why,  his  only 
possible  plea  is  infatuation.  Henry  has  always  been 
the  same.  As  a  boy,  he  never  had  any  excuse  for 
anything."  She  began  to  talk  at  a  great  pace.  .  .  . 

Away  from  the  dancing,  where  two  deck  chairs 
nestled  together  under  the  rail,  Gerald  and  the  object 
of  his  grand  passion  were  sitting  out  together.  The 
tight-rope  walker  was  leaning  over  the  rail  admiring, 
with  the  professional  appreciation  of  one  who  had 
seen  nearly  all  the  beauties  of  the  world,  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  ship's  lanterns  in  the  dancing  waters  and 
the  soothing  sound  of  the  lap-lap  against  the  yacht's 
sides. 

"Ohe!"  she  sighed  at  last,  stretching  out  voluptu- 
211 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

ous  arms  in  a  gesture  of  weariness.  She  had  played 
a  big  fish  and  lost  it  at  the  last  moment  through  no 
fault  of  her  own.  Well,  there  were  other  fish  in  the 
sea,  and  there  was  still  some  bait  left,  though  her 
looking-glass  warned  her  that  it  would  be  wise  to 
confine  the  sport  to  the  young.  Experience  is  a 
shrewd  detective.  "Ohe!"  she  sighed  again,  as  she 
looked  across  the  waters  and  knew  that  she  must 
become  a  rolling  stone  once  more.  Yet  she  was  not 
really  sorry;  four  walls  had  never  been  able  to  con- 
tain her  for  long  at  a  time,  and  she  aimed  a  great  deal 
higher  than  a  merely  nice  young  man. 

"Ohe  I"  she  murmured  for  the  third  time,  so  that 
Gerald  removed  the  cigarette  from  his  mouth  and 
asked  her  what  was  the  matter. 

"Nitski  on  the  wedding,  boy  Gerald,"  said  Miss 
Ellis  sadly. 

"Whatever  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

"Don't  you  see,  boysie?  Yesterday  twopence 
colored,  to-day  a  penny  plain — q a  se  volt." 

"You  mean  you're  turning  me  down?" 

She  dropped  her  cigarette  over  the  side  and 
watched  the  glow  suddenly  eclipsed. 

"Your  uncle,"  she  murmured  slowly,  "is  so  very 
casual;  he  might  have  a  son." 

"Of  course,"  murmured  the  boy  bitterly.  "I 
never  thought  of  that."  As  for  his  sarcasm,  it  was 
as  effective  as  a  pea-shooter  on  an  india-rubber  ball. 

"Somebody,"  returned  the  tight-rope  walker,  un- 
ruffled, "somebody  has  got  to  think  about  these 
things." 

"You  never  cared  for  me  a  bit,  then  ?"  said  Gerald. 

212 


LADIES    AND    GENTLEMEN 

It  is  a  sore  blow  to  a  young  man's  pride  to  discover 
that  his  face  value  is  not  what  he  thought  it.  But 
Belle  Ellis  was  not  an  entirely  callous  individual. 

"You  don't  understand,  boysie,"  she  said.  "I 
like  you  well  enough;  just  as  much  as  I'll  ever  like 
any  man,  whether  I  marry  him  or  not.  Only,  you 
see,  I've  got  to  make  a  splash.  I  can't  help  it.  If 
I'm  not  hunting  big  game,  I'm  not  there.  I'm  a  sort 
of  female  company  promoter.  Say,  you  and  I  know 
too  much  about  the  world  to  go  breaking  our  hearts, 
eh  ?  I'm  thinking  it  would  take  an  almighty  eruption 
even  to  get  a  bend  on  mine." 

Appealed  to  as  a  man  of  the  world,  Gerald  quickly 
started  to  adapt  himself  to  the  new  situation.  At 
any  rate,  he  had  had  an  adventure.  He  found  that 
his  mind  was  sufficiently  composed  to  enable  him  to 
light  another  cigarette. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said,  as  he  flung  the  match  over 
the  side.  "We  men  do  get  had."  There  was  a 
certain  amount  of  glory  to  be  extracted  even  from 
getting  "had." 

"It's  a  quaint  thing,"  said  the  tight-rope  walker, 
looking  over  the  water.  "I'll  go  off  this  yacht  to- 
night, and  it's  a  tiara  to  a  hairpin  you  won't  ever  clap 
eyes  on  me  again;  but  if  that  girl  with  the  rose-bud 
mouth  and  the  blush  hadn't  doped  uncle  with  wet 
kisses,  we'd  have  been  in  the  same  loose-box  till  we 
got  our  contracts  for  the  Better  Land." 

"Oh,"  said  Gerald,  "I  might  have  found  you  out 
before  then!" 

She  looked  at  him  with  an  almost  maternal  smile, 
thinking  of  other  "cases"  she  had  handled. 

213 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"You  ?"  she  echoed.  "You  wouldn't  have  had  any 
more  chance  than  a  snowball  in  hell.  Care  for  an- 
other dance?" 

But  even  Gerald  was  not  quick-change  artist 
enough  for  this. 

"I  think  not,"  he  said  stiffly. 

"Allowing  a  decent  interval  for  mourning?"  she 
laughed.  "Ah,  Gerald  boy,  don't  waste  time  curing 
a  heartache  that's  not  there.  Life's  too  short  to 
wear  black  for  one's  mistakes.  Hear  that  waltz? 
I  danced  to  that  last  with  a  ring-master  in  Belgrade. 
It's  pulling  me.  So  long!" 

Gerald  sat  out  for  two  dances,  fighting  against  an 
inexplicable  sense  of  relief.  It  is  annoying  to  find 
that  one's  grand  passion  is  not  so  grand  as  one 
had  thought,  but  it  is  still  more  annoying  to  have 
to  tell  one's  mother  that  one  has  made  a  fool  of 
one's  self. 

He  was  beginning  on  his  fourth  cigarette  when 
Mary,  who  had  already  danced  herself  into  a  state 
of  fatigue,  and  who  had  refused  everybody  this  num- 
ber in  order  to  go  and  romance  to  herself  in  some 
quiet  corner,  came  upon  her  brother  frowning  bravely 
across  the  water. 

"Why,  Gerald,"  she  said,  "what  is  the  matter?" 

Gerald  removed  his  cigarette  slowly. 

"Life's  a  sham,  kid,"  he  replied  with  dignity. 
"The  world  is  a  hollow  farce." 

She  laughed  merrily. 

"Oh,  not  to-night,"  she  answered.  "Can't  you 
see  the  stars  shining  in  the  waves?" 

He  got  up  gloomily. 

214 


"You  think  everything  is  romantic,"  he  said;  "just 
like  a  kid — always  pretending." 

"Well,  if  one  must  pretend,"  she  answered 
shrewdly,  "it  is  better  to  pretend  one  is  happy  than 
pretend  one  is  miserable." 

"Words!"  scoffed  her  brother.  "You  live  on 
them." 

"Don't  be  cynical,  Gerald,"  she  begged.  "No 
disaster  can  be  great  enough  to  excuse  that." 

"If  you  want  to  know,"  he  said  slowly,  "I  am  no 
longer  engaged." 

Mary  was  silent  for  a  moment.  She  could  not 
pretend  to  any  sorrow. 

"Oh!"  went  on  the  boy,  "I  didn't  expect  you  to 
be  sympathetic.  You  were  one  of  the  first  to  throw 
mud  at  Belle." 

"Some  of  it  seems  to  have  found  a  home,"  she 
answered.  "Of  course,  she  did  not  want  you  after 
Uncle  Henry's  marriage.  I  can't  pretend  I'm  not 
very  glad  to  hear  it." 

"Oh,  well,"  answered  Gerald,  "I'm  not  going  to 
make  a  tragedy  out  of  it !" 

"I  believe,"  said  his  sister,  "that  even  you  recog- 
nize that  it  is  a  case  for  a  Te  Deum." 

He  looked  at  her  with  surprise.  Mary  apparently 
wasn't  quite  so  dense  as  he  had  liked  to  think  her. 
She  seemed  to  have  divined  that  inexplicable  relief 
of  his.  It  was  disconcerting,  and  he  did  not  imme- 
diately meet  her  eyes. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  last,  looking  away  over  the 
water,  "well,  at  any  rate,  don't  tell  mother;  I  may 
have  been  an  ass,  but  I'm  hanged  if  I'm  going  to 

215 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

stand  months  of  'I  told  you  so.'     I'm  going  to  tell 
her  my  own  way." 

"Come  and  have  a  dance  with  me,"  she  answered, 
and  they  moved  off  toward  the  strains  of  the  or- 
chestra. 

"I  say,"  said  Gerald,  as  they  threaded  their  way 
past  ghostly  ventilators  and  phantom  davits,  "what 
about  the  Duchess?  Old  Henry  seems  to  have 
struck  a  winner,  though  she  did  drink  her  own  health. 
You  know,  Mary,  you  can't  be  a  real  woman,  or 
you'd  have  been  almost  crazy  at  her  taking  the  shine 
out  of  you  in  your  own  clothes — what?" 

"Don't  be  silly,  Gerald,"  she  returned.  "She'd 
have  taken  the  shine  out  of  me  if  she'd  been  dressed 
in  a  sack.  There's  a  difference  between  being  pretty 
and  being  beautiful,  you  know." 

"Very  few  pretty  women,"  he  said,  "would  ac- 
knowledge it." 

"They  would  look  infinitely  less  pretty,"  she 
retorted,  "if  they  did  not." 

"Where  is  she?"  put  in  Gerald  suddenly.  "I, 
haven't  seen  her  since  dinner,  or  Uncle  Henry 
either." 

"The  Duchess,"  said  Mary  in  a  detached  sort  of 
way,  "has  too  bad  a  headache  to  come  to  the  dance." 

Gerald  looked  at  her  sharply. 

"By  George!"  he  said.  "That  will  be  mother's 
finger  in  the  pie !" 

They  came  upon  the  dancers,  a  splendid  picture 
of  iridescent  color  and  high-pitch  happiness,  its  bril- 
liance redoubled  by  the  background  of  the  night  and 
the  sea. 

216 


LADIES    AND    GENTLEMEN 

Mary  stopped  suddenly. 

"It's  a  shame !"  she  said  tensely.  "A  shame  I" 
Gerald  was  startled  by  the  anger  in  her  voice ;  he 
was  about  to  answer,  but  the  next  moment  she  had 
flung  herself  into  the  dance  and  he  was  forgetting 
everything  in  the  intoxication  of  rhythm.  For 
though  the  accomplishments  of  her  soul  were  many, 
Mary  had  not  neglected  her  body,  and  she  was  an 
excellent  dancer. 


217 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

CINDERELLA 

THE  valet  discovered  Henry  at  last  digesting  with 
great  appreciation  the  story  of  Cinderella.  The 
Duke  looked  up  as  Dunn  came  into  the  chart-house 
and  put  the  book  aside  with  a  sigh. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  your  Grace,"  began  the  valet, 
"but  Lady  Blake  sent  me  to  express  the  hope  that 
you  have  not  forgotten  that  you  are  giving  a  dance." 

"Very  wrong  of  me,"  murmured  Henry. 

"I  was  also  to  say,  your  Grace,  that  the  Duchess 
has  a  headache  and  is  too  unwell  to  come  to  the 
yacht." 

"Ah!"  said  the  Duke,  looking  out  of  the  little 
square  window.  "Now  that  sounds  very  improb- 
able." He  remained  silent  for  a  few  moments  figur- 
ing out  to  himself  why  Molly  should  suddenly  have 
developed  a  headache.  Perhaps  she  had  been  afraid 
to  face  the  ordeal;  perhaps  Octavia  .  .  . 

Now,  interference  with  his  concerns  always  an- 
noyed Henry  more  than  anything  else. 

He  turned  suddenly  to  the  valet. 

"Have  you  ever  read  'Cinderella,'  Dunn?"  he 
asked. 

"Certainly,  your  Grace." 

"A  very  pretty  story." 

"Very  pretty  and  charming  indeed,  your  Grace." 

"Curious  that  I  should  never  have  actually  read 
the  story  until  to-night,"  went  on  the  Duke.  "I 

218 


CINDERELLA 

suppose  such  abysmal  ignorance  is  really  only  toler- 
able on  the  Bench.  Now  I  wonder  what  was  wrong 
with  Cinderella?" 

Dunn  perceived  that  a  comment  was  expected. 

"Nowadays,  your  Grace,"  he  said,  "all  she  wanted 
would  be  a  little  swank." 

"I  am  afraid  you  are  very  worldly,"  murmured 
Henry,  rising;  "but  you  are  probably  right." 

He  ran  his  finger  idly  over  the  pages  of  fairy  tales. 

"Go  back  to  Wynninghame  Towers,  Dunn,"  he 
said  at  last,  "and  see  if  her  Grace  is  sufficiently  re- 
covered to  attend  the  dance." 

"Very  good,  your  Grace." 

"On  the  way  tell  Lady  Blake  that  I  am  just  about 
to  make  my  appearance  in  the  saloon." 

"Very  good,  your  Grace." 

Dunn  turned  and  went  down  the  ladder.  Henry, 
after  a  few  moments'  reflection,  became  more  than 
ever  convinced  that  Octavia  had  manufactured  this 
sudden  headache.  He  suddenly  remembered,  too, 
the  paragraphs  in  the  evening  papers,  and  realized 
that  in  all  probability  he  would  be  expected  to  make 
some  sort  of  statement. 

The  realization  annoyed  him  considerably.  He 
remembered  also  that  Lady  Edgeware  would  be  sure 
to  be  in  evidence  somewhere,  and  he  began  to  wish 
very  earnestly  that  it  was  to-morrow.  He,  too, 
began  to  think  that  he  was  only  safe  upon  the  high 
seas.  However,  there  was  nothing  for  it,  and  so  he 
descended  the  steps  and  entered  the  saloon,  which 
was  quite  empty  save  for  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  who  was 
thoughtfully  smoking  a  cigar  and  drinking  cognac. 

219 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Well,  Wynninghame,"  began  the  old  gentleman, 
"I  hear  you've  made  a  fool  of  yourself  again." 

"So  they  say,"  replied  Henry. 

"I  always  knew,"  said  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  sipping 
his  brandy,  "that  you  would  end  with  some  kind  of 
midsummer  madness  of  this  sort;  always  told  your 
father  you  would.  Now  it's  happened,  and  you're 
finished.  What  does  Octavia  say?" 

"Exactly  what  one  would  expect  Octavia  to  say," 
said  the  Duke.  "Nothing  of  any  importance." 

"Don't  be  bitter!"  snapped  the  old  gentleman. 
"I  always  said  to  your  father,  'The  boy's  mooning 
about.  He  ought  to  be  getting  into  trouble — it's  all 
wrong.  He'll  grow  up  bitter  I" 

"How  glad  you  must  be,"  said  Henry,  as  he  moved 
toward  the  door,  "that  you  are  no  relation  of  mine !" 

"H'm!"  grunted  the  apostle  of  the  roaring  for- 
ties. "In  my  young  days  people  used  to  say  what 
they  thought." 

"What  an  indictment  of  the  Victorians!"  mur- 
mured Henry.  He  went  out  to  where  the  dancing 
was  in  full  swing  and  gazed  upon  the  scene  for  some 
moments.  The  measure  came  to  an  end,  and  for 
some  time  Henry  was  meeting  old  acquaintances  and 
endeavoring  to  remember  the  names  of  new  ones. 
Someone,  bolder  than  the  rest,  congratulated  him 
upon  his  marriage  and,  the  lead  once  given,  every- 
body followed  suit. 

It  was  not  till  some  time  later  that  he  was  run 
to  earth  by  Lady  Edgeware,  who  steered  him  firmly 
to  a  secluded  corner  and  flung  herself  forthwith  into 
a  searching  cross-examination.  Henry  bore  it  all 

220 


CINDERELLA 

good-naturedly  enough,  but  his  lack  of  serious  atten- 
tion to  her  drove  the  old  lady  nearly  crazy  with  irri- 
tation. "No  one,"  she  wound  up,  "will  ever  receive 
your  wife." 

"In  that  case,"  said  Henry,  "seeing  that  the  whole 
of  my  existence  has  been  an  effort  to  escape  being 
received,  she  will  be  an  excellent  helpmate  to  me." 

"You  are  a  fool,  Henry,"  snapped  the  Countess; 
"an  utter  fool." 

"Leave  it  at  that,"  he  returned.  "Can  the 
leopard  change  his  spots?" 

"He  can  take  the  advice  of  his  relations,"  she 
answered. 

"But  then,"  returned  Henry,  "you  will  find  that 
all  a  leopard's  relations  have  private  spots  of  their 
own,  so  it  becomes  a  choice  of  evils." 

"That  a  man  of  your  age  should  be  fooled  by  a 
pretty  face!"  she  ejaculated.  "It  is  almost  in- 
credible." 

"Yet,  you  married  the  Earl  late  in  life,  Lady 
Helen,"  he  said. 

"Do  you  suggest  that  I  fooled  him  with  my 
face?" 

"How  did  you  fool  him,  then?"  he  asked. 
"Apparently  you  regard  all  marriages  as  some  sort 
of  swindle." 

Lady  Edgeware  was  annoyed. 

"Your  marriage  and  mine,  Henry,  have  nothing 
in  common.  Yours  is  an  entirely  one-sided  con- 
tract." 

The  Duke  rose. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  "not  very  long  ago  I 
221 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

was  impertinent  enough  to  believe  that  myself? 
Now,  however,  I  am  not  nearly  so  sure." 

The  old  lady  stared  at  him. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  she  said,  "that  you 
are  not  in  love  with  the  girl?" 

"You  must  see  her,  Lady  Helen,  and  judge  for 
yourself." 

"I  refuse  to  meet  her.  I  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  a  marriage." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"A  pity!"  he  said.  "I  think  my  wife  would  have 
been  interested  to  see  my  grandmother.  Still — of 
course,  you  must  do  as  you  think  best.  Shall  you 
cease  sending  me  invitations  for  your  second  Thurs- 
day afternoons?" 

"You  are  an  incorrigible  and  absurd  idiot," 
shrilled  the  Countess,  losing  control  of  her  temper. 
"I  have  a  great  mind  never  to  speak  to  you  again. 
You  have  created  an  impossible  situation,  and  you 
do  not  even  give  it  serious  thought.  It  is  madden- 
ing." 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  Earl  of  Edgeware, 
moving  stiffly  with  the  aid  of  an  ebony  stick  with  a 
magnificent  handle  of  ivory,  in  the  form  of  a  crouch- 
ing lion  with  jade-green  eyes,  appeared  in  the  circle 
of  light  formed  by  the  arc-lamp  above  them. 

"Evening,  Henry,"  he  said  in  a  dry  voice. 
"Helen  congratulating  you  on  the  wedding?  Very 
sudden.  Very  sudden  indeed;  you  never  could  do 
things  like  other  people,  could  you?  Take  a  steep 
jump,  blindfold,  into  a  canal  as  likely  as  not;  I've 
seen  'em  do  it.  Damn  lugubrious  temperament! 

222 


CINDERELLA 

Well,  we  all  have  our  eccentricities,  don't  we? 
I'd  like  to  see  your  temptation,  Henry;  I'm  in- 
terested to  see  what  sort  of  woman  you  think  you'll 
run  in  double  harness  with.  Something  out  of  the 
ordinary,  if  I  know  you.  One  of  these  things  you 
see  about  with  cropped  hair,  eh?  Or  a  reclaimed 
sister  of  mercy,  eh?"  He  chuckled  to  himself 
merrily  till,  happening  to  catch  sight  of  Lady  Edge- 
ware's  eye  fixed  upon  him  in  stern  disapproval,  he 
ceased  suddenly,  and  his  short  and  rare  burst  of 
cheerfulness  died  immediately. 

"Henry's  marriage,  Edward,"  she  began,  "is  not 
a  matter  to  be  flippant  about." 

"Certainly  not,  Helen,"  mumbled  the  Earl;  "cer- 
tainly not.  Can't  imagine  what  I  was  thinking 
about." 

"It  will  be  quite  impossible  for  us  to  receive  his 
wife,"  went  on  the  Countess;  "quite  impossible." 

"Oh,  come,  my  dear,"  remonstrated  her  husband, 
whose  kindly  nature  was  revolted  by  this  attitude, 
"you  know,  things  aren't  what  they  were.  Look 
at  Cartley's  wife — goes  everywhere — everywhere  1 
Nobody  minds.  Must  be  catholic,  you  know.  Must 
keep  up  to  date !" 

Henry  leaned  against  the  rail  and  watched  the 
two  old  people.  Really  he  found  it  impossible  to  be 
angry  with  them.  It  was  a  revelation  to  him  to  see 
how  the  most  private  of  his  affairs  were  treated  as 
pooled  among  his  friends  and  relations. 

"Cartley's  wife,"  the  Countess  was  saying,  "was 
an  entirely  different  case.  At  least  he  was  married 
properly,  whereas  Henry— 

223 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Hole-and-corner  business,"  said  the  Earl,  shak- 
ing a  trembling  finger  in  Henry's  face.  "Hole-and- 
corner  business." 

"Well,"  said  the  Duke,  "surely  anything  was  better 
than  an  argument  with  Lady  Helen  and  Octavia  at 
the  church  door?" 

"If  the  affair  had  been  conducted  openly,"  said 
Lady  Edgeware  stiffly,  "you  would  never  have  got 
as  far  as  the  church  door." 

"In  that  case,"  answered  Henry  imperturbably, 
"mine  was  the  only  way." 

"I  shall  not  receive  the  girl,"  repeated  the  Coun- 
tess obstinately. 

"Come,  Helen,"  said  her  husband;  "must  keep 
abreast  of  the  times,  you  know.  Folk  ride  other  peo- 
ple's indiscretions  on  a  light  rein  nowadays.  When 
we  were  young  we  rode  hard  and  broke  knees  as 
often  as  not.  Can't  be  done  now;  old  folk  must  fall 
in  with  new  ways ;  need  not  agree,  but  must  acquiesce 
— Parliamentary  phraseology,  but  sound — sound." 

"If  you  wish,  Edward,"  she  retorted,  "to  fly  in  the 
face  of  my  wishes " 

"Greatest  mistake,  my  dear,"  returned  her  hus- 
band hastily.  "I  only  thought  perhaps  we'd  better 
think  it  all  out  first.  Don't  want  to  be  left  jibbing 
at  the  post  while  the  rest  of  our  set  are  making  the 
running — eh  ?" 

The  Countess  rose. 

"I'm  going  to  speak  to  Octavia,"  she  said.  "At 
least  it  is  providential  that  the  girl  had  enough  good 
sense  not  to  make  an  exhibition  of  herself  here  to- 
night." 

224 


CINDERELLA 

She  moved  off  toward  the  dance. 
"Sorry  about  this,  Henry,"  said  the  old  Earl 
"Deuced  sorry.  My  wife,  you  know — blue  blood — 
breeding  and  all  that — but  never  can  behave  like  a 
lady — never  could — never  will.  But  charming  na- 
ture— charming,  if  one  were  ever  to  get  to  know  her. 
I  feel  sure  of  it.  As  for  you,  I'm  with  you,  Henry — 
sympathize  entirely.  Follow  your  head.  I've  seen 
a  scratch  mare  leave  a  thoroughbred  ten  lengths  in 
five  furlongs  before  now.  You  can't  tell — you  can't 
tell.  But  Octavia  and  Helen  are  the  old  school,  you 
know.  Break  things  if  they  won't  bend,  and  all 
that.  Had  its  points,  but  we  live  in  a  more  facile 
generation,  eh  ?  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Eccentricity, 
what?  Must  keep  young!" 

He  chuckled  to  himself  and  hobbled  off  in  the  di- 
rection in  which  the  Countess  had  disappeared. 
The  unfortunate  old  gentleman  spent  his  whole  time 
following  her  about  and  pouring  oil  upon  the 
troubled  waters  that  always  seethed  and  bubbled  in 
her  wake. 

Henry  stood  looking  over  the  water  for  some  time. 
He  wondered  whether  Lady  Edgeware  really  meant 
to  cut  his  wife,  and,  if  so,  what  sort  of  attitude  he 
himself  ought  to  adopt.  It  appeared  that  in  his 
efforts  to  bring  to  life  the  wonderful  happiness  of 
Molly's  silly  books  he  had  only  succeeded  in  giving 
her  a  husband  who  did  not  know  his  duties,  a  home 
that  she  regarded  as  a  museum,  and  a  title  which  was 
about  the  heaviest  liability  she  had  ever  incurred. 
The  Duke  began  to  feel  serious  doubts  as  to  the 
progress  of  his  campaign.  It  seemed  possible  that  he 

225 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

was  to  be  taken  out  of  his  depth.  He  would  have 
to  practise  swimming. 

A  little  dancing  light  appeared  suddenly  on  the 
black  curtain  into  which  Henry  was  peering.  It 
pirouetted  and  leaped  capriciously  to  and  fro  like  a 
countryman  on  a  moving  staircase.  Henry  realized 
suddenly  that  this  was  the  boat  returning  from  the 
landing-stage.  He  wondered  whether  Molly  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  come,  and,  if  so,  what  would 
take  place  when  he  presented  her  to  his  guests.  She 
appeared  to  him  then  a  somewhat  pathetic  little 
figure.  For  the  first  time  he  felt  that  it  was  part  of 
his  business  to  protect  her. 

There  was  something  rather  comic  in  the  way 
these  two  pitied  one  another. 

The  boat  drew  nearer  and  the  dancing  light  now 
showed  the  dark  figure  of  a  man  rowing,  in  the  bows 
the  unmistakable  rigidity  of  the  valet,  and  in  the 
stern  another  figure  quite  overwhelmed  by  furs  and 
rugs,  with  a  white  face  peeping  out  from  the  top  and 
eyes  that  scanned  the  decks  of  the  yacht  with  a  fright- 
ened curiosity. 

The  boat  came  alongside,  and  Henry  stepped  to 
the  head  of  the  gangway  and  leaned  far  over  the 
side.  She  looked  up  at  him  from  the  boat. 

"Hullo,  Cinderella !"  he  called  down  to  her. 

Her  voice  floated  up  to  him,  a  new  note  of  hap- 
piness in  it.  Had  not  her  husband  actually  re- 
membered her  existence? 

"Hullo,  Prince  Charming!"  she  said. 


226 


CHAPTER   XIX 

COLLISION 

MOLLY  came  up  the  accommodation  ladder  two  steps 
at  a  time. 

"Headache  better?"  he  asked,  as  he  lent  her  his 
hand. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  slight  smile.  So  that 
was  the  story  Octavia  had  told. 

"Oh,  yes — quite  well,"  she  answered;  "but  I  got 
locked  into  my  room  and  couldn't  get  out.  Dunn 
broke  the  lock  in  the  end." 

"Ah!"  said  Henry.  But  it  did  not  express  the 
rage  which  he  felt.  He  was  at  any  rate  progressing 
toward  a  realization  of  the  married  state,  for  he 
was  already  beginning  to  look  upon  Molly  as  his 
property.  It  annoyed  him  intensely  that  Octavia 
should  secrete  his  personal  belongings. 

"Well,  now  you  are  here,  you  will  dance  with 
me  ?"  he  asked. 

"Do  you  dance?"  she  said  in  surprise. 

"I  hate  it,"  he  admitted. 

Molly  laughed. 

"We  won't  risk  it,"  she  said  without  affectation. 
"You  hate  it,  and  I'm  not  at  all  sure  I  know  how  to 
do  it.  You  know  all  that  knee-bending  and  waggling 
looks  awful  difficult." 

"Positively  idiotic  it  looks  to  me,"  answered  her 
husband. 

227 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

She  looked  at  him  in  silence. 

"Oh!  I  do  wish  you  weren't  going  away!"  she 
said.  "And  I  hope  you'll  find  the  toad,"  she  added 
hastily. 

Henry  made  no  answer.  He  wished  fervently 
that  his  wife  did  not  love  him — a  wish  that  is  not  so 
uncommon  as  it  sounds.  Life  is  so  much  easier 
when  one  is  indifferent. 

"I  shall  be  back  within  six  months,"  he  said  at 
last,  "and  then  we  must  make  our  plans  for  the 
future." 

She  slipped  her  hand  suddenly  into  his. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  said.  "I  didn't  mean  to  say  that 
about  your  going  away.  I  don't  want  to  bother  you 
with  my  love — until — until  you  want  me  to.  It  isn't 
fair  of  me.  And  I  owe  you  so  much." 

"That,"  he  returned,  "is  quite  absurd."  A  week 
ago  he  would  not  have  meant  it. 

"Listen!"  she  said  suddenly.  "It's  the  last  time 
we'll  be  alone  for  months.  If  you  are  only  being 
kind  to  me — if  you  are  certain  you  can  never  be  any- 
thing else,  I'd  like  you  to  say  so.  I  sort  of  feel,  in 
a  cottage  I — I  could  work  things — but  this  way  it 
isn't  any  good.  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the  truth.  If 
I'm  in  the  way,  I'm  far  too  fond  of  you  to — to  go 
on.  And  I'll  just  slip  back  into  the  boat,  and  you 
need  never  see  me  again.  I  won't  do  anything  silly, 
but  .  .  .  but  I'll  make  it  easy  for  you  to  get 
rid  of  me." 

It  cost  her  something  to  say  it,  but  it  was  what 
she  had  wanted  him  to  know  since  she  had  first  come 
down  to  Wynninghame  Towers. 

228 


COLLISION 

"As  for  love,"  he  answered,  "there  is  no  time-table 
on  the  subject,  is  there  ?  And  for  the  rest,  you  are 
my  wife,  my  child,  and  I  am  afraid  you  must  stick 
to  me,  however  unsatisfactory  you  may  find  me." 

She  sighed.  As  usual,  he  had  skated  delicately 
over  the  thin  ice  when  she  had  so  wanted  him  to 
fall  in. 

"I  wish  I  knew,"  she  said,  "why  you  married  me.'* 

"I  told  you,"  he  returned,  "it  was  in  order  that 
you  might  have  scope  for  your  dreams — and  play 
with  the  toys  in  my  nursery." 

"Perhaps,"  she  answered  in  a  low  voice,  picking 
nervously  at  the  fur  round  her  shoulders,  "perhaps 
your  toys  won't  work  for  me ;  I  don't  think  you  quite 
understood  what  a  simple  little  fool  I  was.  Those 
books  were  really  very  silly  books,  you  know.  Per- 
haps your  toys  are  beyond  me." 

"Really,"  said  the  Duke,  "I  don't  think  we've 
given  them  a  fair  trial  yet." 

She  stood  up  suddenly. 

"I'm  a  hell  of  a  brute  to  worry  you  like  this," 
she  said.  "Sorry!  I  suppose  the  band  makes  me 
sloppy.  You'll  positively  hate  me  soon." 

"Let  us  go  down  and  watch  people  enjoying  them- 
selves," said  Henry.  "It  is  always  a  perpetual 
marvel  to  me." 

"Another  absurdity  1"  she  laughed  as  they  moved 
off  toward  the  dancing.  "I  shall  really  begin  to  be- 
lieve you  are  a  prig  if  you  are  so  superior." 

He  felt  her  hand  close  on  his  arm  as  they  came 
into  the  blaze  of  light. 

"Oh  1"  she  said,  as  she  saw  the  glittering  kaleido- 
229 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

scope  of  dancers.     "Oh!  I  am  afraid — afraid  of 
them!" 

"It  is  only  their  envy  you  have  to  fear,"  whispered 
the  Duke.  But  good  manners  never  quite  healed  any 
hurt.  Even  Henry  was  beginning  to  despise  his 
politeness  to  his  wife. 

Octavia  sighted  them  from  afar  and  realized  that 
she  was  called  upon  to  make  the  best  of  a  bad  busi- 
ness. Of  this,  as  of  everything  else  which  was  a 
question  of  suavity  rather  than  sincerity,  she  had  the 
technique  at  her  fingers'  ends.  Nevertheless,  she 
was  not  quite  sure  how  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame 
would  receive  her  after  being  locked  in  her  bed- 
room for  the  greater  part  of  the  evening. 

She  came  up  to  Molly  with  a  smile  of  welcome  on 
her  face,  and,  greeting  her  in  a  voice  loud  enough  to 
be  heard  within  the  immediate  vicinity,  told  her  how 
pleased  she  was  that  she  had  been  able  to  come  down 
to  the  yacht  after  all. 

"And  is  your  headache  really  better?"  she  finished 
up,  ignoring  the  rather  ominous  frown  on  Henry's 
face. 

"Much  better,  thank  you,"  said  Molly,  and 
Octavia  gave  a  sigh  of  relief.  At  any  rate,  the  girl 
was  intelligent  enough  not  to  make  a  scene.  She 
went  on  talking  quickly,  however,  for  she  knew  that 
Henry,  once  he  was  genuinely  irritated,  was  capable 
of  any  outrage. 

"I  dare  say,"  she  went  on,  "that  you  would  rather 
not  dance,  in  case  it  were  to  come  on  again?" 

"That  is  extremely  unlikely,"  put  in  the  Duke 
dryly. 

230 


COLLISION 

"It  is  quite  well,  thank  you,"  said  Molly,  "but  I 
won't  dance,  all  the  same.  I'd  like  just  to  listen  to 
the  band." 

Good,  thought  Octavia;  that,  at  any  rate,  elimi- 
nated the  cake-walk.  It  appeared  there  was  yet  a 
chance  of  coming  through  the  evening  without  dis- 
aster. At  any  rate  the  plunge  must  be  taken.  Old 
Mr.  Pardoe-Vine,  who  was  beginning  to  think  of 
leaving  the  yacht,  as  nothing  of  any  interest  for 
future  retailing  in  clubs  seemed  to  be  going  to 
happen,  caught  sight  of  Octavia  and  came  up  in  order 
to  make  his  excuses. 

Octavia  plunged. 

"May  I  introduce  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine?"  she  said  to 
Molly.  "He  is  a  very  old  friend  of  the  family,  and 
has  been  so  anxious  to  meet  you.  This  is  the 
Duchess  of  Wynninghame,"  she  added  as  the  old 
man  bowed. 

"I  am  very  pleased,"  he  said,  "to  meet  Henry's 
wife.  I  knew  his  father  before  he  was  married;  I 
was  present  at  his  wedding.  I  am  only  sorry  that 
I  was  not  present  at  yours." 

Molly  took  his  outstretched  hand,  and  thought 
what  a  nice  old  gentleman  he  was;  while  in  Henry's 
head  there  were  buzzing  the  words,  "Well,  Wyn- 
ninghame, I  hear  you've  made  a  fool  of  yourself 
again."  What  a  game  it  all  was !  And  what  a  silly 
game! 

"I  trust  you  are  going  to  be  very  happy,"  the  old 
man  was  saying.  "I  am  glad  to  be  the  first  of 
Henry's  friends  to  congratulate  you  both  together." 

Henry  once  more  found  himself  repeating,  "Well, 
231 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Wynninghame,  I  hear  you've  made  a  fool  of  yourself 
again!" 

Molly  was  thanking  him  for  his  good  wishes. 
The  Duke  felt  that  in  a  few  moments  he  would  be 
repeating  his  line  aloud. 

"Come,  Molly,"  he  said,  "everyone  will  be  going 
soon,  and  there  are  other  congratulations  for  us  to 
receive." 

They  left  Octavia  and  the  old  gentleman  alone. 

"What  a  nice  old  man!"  said  the  Duchess.  "I 
didn't  feel  a  bit  afraid  of  him." 

"Charming,"  returned  Henry;  "but  he  has  one 
fault.  He  knows  the  rule  of  the  game  too  well.  It 
becomes  monotonous." 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Pardoe-Vine  gazed  after  them. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  he  said,  "that  Henry  is 
not  in  love  with  that  girl?" 

Octavia  sighed.  It  appeared  that  Lady  Edge- 
ware  had  not  been  able  to  hold  her  tongue  for  very 
long. 

"No.  Not  a  scrap  1"  she  said  in  answer  to  his 
question. 

The  old  gentleman's  eyes  were  still  fixed  on  the 
disappearing  figure  of  the  Duchess. 

"The  man  must  be  a  fish,"  he  snapped  suddenly. 

"Curious  you  should  say  that,"  returned  Octavia. 
"It  is  just  what  Peter  Graine  calls  him." 

"But  why  on  earth  did  he  marry  her,  then?" 

"That,"  she  answered,  "is  one  of  the  questions  I 
am  tired  of  not  being  able  to  answer.  Really,  I 
think  sometimes  he  must  have  done  it  in  one  of  his 
fits  of  absentmindedness." 

232 


COLLISION 

The  old  man  grunted  in  an  irritated  way. 

"No  man,"  he  grumbled,  "has  any  right  to  be  as 
inexplicable  as  Henry." 

Still,  he  had  seen  the  Duchess,  and  at  least  a 
fortnight's  club  conversation  was  provided  for.  He 
said  good  night,  wrapped  himself  up  in  an  enormous 
coat  and  a  white  silk  scarf,  and  returned  to  town, 
sleeping  happily  all  the  way  and  dreaming  of  a  recep- 
tion in  which  a  Duke  dropped  his  aitches  and  a 
Duchess  swore  like  a  fishwife. 

Society  found  the  process  of  being  introduced  to 
Molly  a  little  difficult.  The  stereotyped  phrase- 
ology designed  for  weddings  does  not  exactly  fill  the 
bill  when  the  ceremony  has  taken  place  behind  every- 
one's back  and  filled  two  columns  of  the  half-penny 
press  as  "A  Shop-girl's  Romance."  Lord  Hart- 
bloom  had  rather  cruelly  suggested  that  the  right 
thing  to  say  on  such  an  occasion  was  "And  the  next 
thing,  please?"  Molly  was  aware  that  all  these 
people  to  whom  Henry  was  introducing  her  must 
have  read  her  "romance,"  and  the  knowledge  made 
her  more  self-conscious  than  she  might  otherwise 
have  been.  She  shook  hands  and  smiled,  therefore, 
just  a  little  too  mechanically. 

Society  was  baffled.  It  upset  the  rules  of  the  game 
that  the  Duke  should  be  departing  for  the  South  Seas 
immediately  after  his  marriage.  There  was  a  time 
for  everything,  and  this  was  emphatically  not  the 
time  for  the  South  Seas.  Society  was  a  little  an- 
noyed at  having  its  code  so  deliberately  infringed. 
However,  there  was  no  doubt  that  the  new  Duchess 
was  highly  ornamental,  and,  this  being  so,  Society 

233 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

was  prepared  to  exercise  to  the  full  its  functions  of 
faith,  hope,  and  charity. 

It  was  the  suspicion  of  this  last  in  its  behavior 
which  annoyed  Henry  considerably.  He  did  not 
like  any  kind  of  criticism  of  his  belongings.  As  for 
Molly,  she  never  noticed  it  at  all. 

It  was  Gerald  who  took  her  down  to  the  supper- 
room  and  plied  her  with  delicacies  she  had  never 
before  seen  outside  a  shop,  and  it  was  Gerald  who, 
now  completely  recovered  from  having  his  grand 
passion  returned  on  his  hands,  went  out  of  his  way  to 
be  merry  and  amusing,  partly  because  he  wanted 
Belle  Ellis  to  see  him  and  partly  because  he  really 
was  enjoying  himself.  A  pretty  girl  is  a  pretty  girl, 
even  if  she  is  one's  aunt.  Thus  Molly  was  beginning 
to  find  her  feet. 

Henry,  seeing  her  in  safe  hands,  determined  to 
have  a  word  witR  Octavia  before  his  departure. 
The  yacht  was  to  start  that  night,  in  order  to  catch 
the  tide,  and  the  Duke  had  no  intention  of  allowing 
Octavia  to  go  home  without  knowing  exactly  what 
he  thought  of  her  conduct. 

"Yes,  Henry,"  she  said  crisply,  before  he  had 
spoken  a  word,  "I  locked  her  in  her  bedroom.  I 
considered  the  risk  of  her  coming  here  was  too  great; 
I  conceive  it  as  part  of  my  duty  to  see  that  you  are 
not  made  a  fool  of." 

"It  didn't  strike  you,  I  suppose,"  returned  Henry, 
"that  it  is  apt  to  make  a  man  look  a  considerable 
fool  if  his  wife  is  locked  up  in  her  room  by  his 
sister?" 

"A  choice  of  wits,"  she  answered. 
234 


COLLISION 

"My  affairs,"  he  said  angrily,  "are  my  affairs." 

"No,  Henry,  they  are  not,"  replied  Octavia. 
"That  is  a  mistake  you  have  made  all  your  life." 

"Do  you  propose  to  meddle  with  my  wife  while 
I  am  away?"  he  asked. 

"I  have  told  you,"  she  answered;  "you  have  pitted 
yourself  against  me  in  this  marriage.  I  was  brought 
up  to  believe  in  caste,  and  your  title  is  too  old  to  play 
the  fool  with." 

Henry  could  not  help  but  admire  the  hard  lines  of 
pride  in  her  face.  At  least  Octavia  was  sincere  in 
this.  She  really  did  believe  in  that  thing  she  called 
"caste." 

He  even  thought  he  could  trace  some  emotion  in 
her  voice  as  she  went  on. 

"I  wish,"  she  was  saying,  "that  anyone  but  you 
had  succeeded  to  the  title.  It  is  not  that  you  have 
ever  before  disgraced  it,  though  it  is  never  wise  for  a 
gentleman  to  be  eccentric.  A  man  with  a  lesser 
name  might  be  accused  of  advertisement.  But  you, 
Henry,  are  indifferent  to  your  title.  You  do  not 
consider,  apparently,  that  you  owe  anything  to  the 
memories  of  those  wRo  made  the  name  of  Wynning- 
hame  and  kept  it.  A  real  aristocracy  is  a  society  of 
debtors — all  trying  to  pay.  It  is  that  which  lifts 
them  from  the  ruck  who  have  no  obligations.  But 
you  have  never  cared,  Henry,  and  now  there  is  this 
final  insult  to  us  all,  this  inexplicable  marriage  to  a 
shop-girl,  without  even  the  dignity  of  passion  about 
it.  Do  you  wonder  I  have  tried  to  prevent  you 
from  flinging  the  girl  at  the  head  of  Society  to- 
night?" 

235 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"I  am  sorry,  Octavia,"  he  replied.  "I  am  afraid 
I  can  see  no  importance  in  a  name.  I  suppose  I  was 
born  without  the  capacity  for  being  blue-blooded,  but 
at  the  same  time  I  have  inherited  from  someone  or 
other  a  certain  obstinacy  in  matters  connected  with 
myself  and  my  belongings.  You  seem  to  take  for 
granted  that  I  am  not  in  love  with  my  wife " 

"I  know  a  lover  when  I  see  one,"  broke  in  Octavia. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"At  least  you  will  admit  that  she  belongs  to  me," 
he  said. 

"It  appears  to  me  in  a  different  light;  I  look  upon 
you  as  belonging  to  the  family,"  she  answered. 

"Well,  Octavia,"  said  Henry  slowly,  "as  you  are 
determined  that  it  is  your  duty  to  annoy  me,  I  sup- 
pose I  must  accept  the  situation.  Short  of  murder- 
ing  the  girl,  you  cannot  get  rid  of  her  without  my 
consent  and  her  connivance." 

"No,"  said  Octavia,  whose  faith  in  the  right 
lawyer,  however,  was  so  great  that  she  fancied  that 
all  these  little  difficulties  could  be  surmounted. 

"In  case  you  annoy  her  I  shall  instruct  Padwick  to 
look  after  her  interests." 

Octavia  laughed. 

"You  talk,  Henry,"  she  said,  "as  if  you  thought  I 
proposed  to  send  her  offensive  postcards." 

"Well,  really,"  he  replied,  "I  begin  to  think  that 
you  would  not  stop  at  anything." 

She  laughed  again. 

"At  any  rate,"  she  said,  "we  know  where  we  stand. 
I  cannot  guess  why  you  married  that  girl,  but  it  is 
enough  for  me  that  the  coat-of-arms  on  your  dishes 

236 


COLLISION 

will  mean  nothing  to  her  at  all.     That  disqualifies 
her  in  my  eyes,  you  see." 

"I  wonder,"  mused  Henry,  "whether  you  will 
ever  see  that  you  are  as  inexplicable  as  I  am." 

"Certainly  not,"  she  returned.  "Who  has  ever 
been  known  to  call  me  eccentric?  By  the  way, 
Henry,"  she  went  on,  "Gerald  is  no  longer  engaged 
to  that  creature." 

"You  worked  that,  did  you  ?"  murmured  the  Duke, 
not  without  a  note  of  admiration  in  his  voice. 

"No,"  returned  Octavia;  "you  did." 

"I?"  he  ejaculated. 

"Certainly;  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  you 
might  have  a  son  and  heir.  And  then,  you  see, 
Gerald  would  not  be  Duke  of  Wynninghame;  natur- 
ally, I  knew  directly  you  were  married  that  she  would 
finish  with  Gerald.  That  is  why  I  didn't  bother  any 
more  about  them." 

Henry  digested  this  in  silence. 

"She  cannot  have  been  at  all  a  nice  woman,  after 
all,"  he  said  at  last. 

"She  wanted  to  become  a  Duchess,"  said  Octavia, 
as  she  moved  away.  "She  was  not  the  only  one." 

But  to  Henry,  whose  illusions  were  even  more  in 
number  than  his  relations  suspected,  it  appeared  a 
particularly  shameful  and  dishonorable  affair. 

Meanwhile,  the  Fates,  grinning  impartially  at 
Octavia  and  Henry  alike,  were  pulling  strings. 

In  the  first  place,  Molly  was  beginning  to  enjoy 
herself.  Gerald  had  persuaded  her  that  champagne 
is  not  a  sin  except  when  it  is  bad  champagne,  and 
although  she  had  resolutely  declined  to  have  more 

237 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

than  one  glass,  it  had  already  done  its  kindly  office 
and  taken  off  the  edge  of  her  nervousness. 

The  second  pawn  in  the  game  which  the  Three 
Sisters  were  playing  was  the  blundering  diplomacy 
of  the  Earl  of  Edgeware.  The  old  gentleman,  who 
was  as  honest  as  the  day  and  quite  unfit  to  be  Lady 
Edgeware's  husband,  had  learned  that  the  Duchess 
of  Wynninghame  was  on  board  the  yacht  and  was 
filled  with  alarm  lest  his  wife  should  carry  out  her 
threat  and  refuse  to  receive  her.  Now  the  Countess, 
had  she  been  left  to  herself,  would  in  all  probability 
have  received  Henry's  wife  coldly  but  correctly. 
But  naturally  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  follow 
that  course  when  her  husband  had  the  impertinence 
to  advise  it.  Lady  Helen  was  one  of  those  women 
who  believed  it  necessary,  in  order  to  insure  a  happy 
home,  to  ignore  everything  her  husband  said  and 
blame  everything  he  did.  Thus,  when  the  old  man 
hobbled  up  to  her,  looking  very  serious  and  obviously 
having  something  very  much  on  his  mind,  she  settled 
down  immediately  into  her  most  obstinate  vein. 

"I  say,  m'dear,"  began  the  Earl  in  jerks,  for  he 
was  very  much  out  of  breath.  "They  say  that 
Henry's  wife  is  on  board.  Most  awkward,  you 
know — after  what's  passed.  Must  do  the  right 
thing,  of  course.  Big  jump,  I  know,  but  we  don't 
want  to  come  down  over  it,  eh?" 

"If  you  want  to  talk  about  horses,  Edward,"  said 
his  wife,  "talk  about  horses;  if  you  want  to  talk 
about  Henry's  wife,  talk  about  her." 

"Yes,  Helen,"  he  acquiesced.  "Can't  get  out  of 
the  habit,  y'know.  You're  quite  right.  Devilish 

238 


COLLISION 

bad  form,  like  riding  over  hounds  and  all  that.     But 
the  question  is,  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it,  eh?" 

"I  have  already  said  that  I  will  not  receive  her. 
If  Henry  chooses  to  insult  us  all  like  this,  he  must 
put  up  with  the  consequences." 

"But,  you  know,  Helen,"  the  unfortunate  old 
gentleman  protested,  "that's  rather  a  drastic  line  to 
take,  what?  We  don't  want  to  make  fools  of  our- 
selves." 

"Have  you  ever  known  me  make  a  fool  of  my- 
self, Edward?"  she  asked. 

The  Earl  of  Edgeware,  who  had  a  most  unreason- 
able aversion  from  telling  a  deliberate  lie,  shuffled 
awkwardly  on  his  feet. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  he  said  at  last,  "there's  no  harm 
in  taking  a  little  forethought  about  these  things,  eh  ? 
Question  seems  to  me,  what's  everybody  else's  line 
of  country?  Follow  the  field  and  you  can't  go 
wrong,  you  know,  what?" 

"Are  we  talking  about  horses  or  not?"  snapped 
the  Countess. 

"No,  Helen,  certainly  not.  Very  forgetful  of 
me."  He  sat  down  with  difficulty  by  her  side. 
"But,  you  see,"  went  on  the  kindly  old  man,  "there 
is  another  side  to  the  question.  The  girl  is  in  a 
very  difficult  position — very  tricky  mount,  eh? — got 
to  ride  strictly  on  the  snaffle.  Question  is,  do  we 
want  to  put  more  difficulties  in  her  way?  Seems  to 
me  a  bit  ungenerous — not  the  sporting  thing  to  do, 
what?" 

"I  am  not  looking  at  the  affair  from  the  point  of 
view  of  sport,"  returned  his  wife  dryly. 

239 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Earl  blundered  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
pit. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "I  am  only  giving  my 
opinion  for  what*  it  is  worth." 

"If  only  you  knew,  Edward,"  she  replied,  "the 
true  worth  of  your  opinions,  you  would  be  ashamed 
of  making  presents  of  them  to  anyone.  Now, 
please,  let  us  have  no  more  of  this  foolish  arguing. 
I  have  told  you  the  line  that  I  am  going  to  take,  and 
that  is  the  end  of  it." 

The  old  gentleman  sat  silent  for  some  moments; 
then  he  sighed  heavily. 

"Well,  Helen,"  he  said  at  last,  "all  I  can  say  is, 
it  doesn't  seem  to  me  the  right  line  of  country  at 
all."  ' 

The  Countess  gave  him  no  answer,  and  her  hus- 
band comforted  himself  with  the  reflection  that  he 
had  done  his  best.  In  reality,  of  course,  he  had 
done  his  worst.  Good  intentions  are  as  often  quick- 
sands as  paving-stones. 

Henry  had  found  Molly  enjoying  herself  im- 
mensely in  the  centre  of  an  infatuated  crowd  of  young 
men.  She  had  never  before  had  the  opportunity  of 
tasting  the  triumphs  of  her  own  beauty.  Indeed,  she 
had  only  realized  the  potentialities  of  her  face  and 
figure  for  the  first  time  under  the  tuition  of  Mary's 
maid.  In  her  Bermondsey  home  she  had  always 
been  given  to  understand  that  loveliness  and  godli- 
ness could  never  go  hand  in  hand,  and  although,  of 
course,  she  knew  that  she  was  not  ugly,  it  had  never 
occurred  to  her  that  she  was  a  beauty. 

Now,  therefore,  she  had  come  suddenly  into  her 
240 


COLLISION 

own,  and  the  result  was  that  she  found  herself  under- 
going a  complete  transformation. 

Her  old  life  and  her  old  associations  slipped  away 
from  her  faster  and  faster  every  moment.  A  sense 
of  power  is  the  finest  cure  in  the  world  for  shyness, 
and  the  obvious  admiration  of  the  boys  who  sur- 
rounded her,  and  deemed  it  a  privilege  to  do  her  any 
little  service,  gave  Molly  just  the  sense  of  power  that 
she  needed  to  throw  off  the  last  of  her  chrysalis  of 
self-distrust.  So  Henry  found  her  laughing  and 
talking  gayly,  interlarding  her  remarks  quite  freely 
with  "Oh,  hell,  no!"  or  "Crikes,  yes!"  without  a 
trace  of  the  abasement  and  apologies  which  followed 
these  slips  when  she  was  talking  to  her  husband. 
The  young  men  found  this  peculiarity  charming,  of 
course,  and  Henry,  coming  into  the  room,  saw  that 
she  was  enjoying  herself  immensely,  and,  not  alto- 
gether sorry  to  find  her  entertainment  taken  off  hi's 
hands,  retired  on  deck  again,  and  was  immediately 
grabbed  by  Lord  Hartbloom,  who  pressed  him 
gloomily  for  his  views  on  the  Parliament  Act  and 
the  ultimate  fate  of  Hereditary  Legislation.  The 
Duke,  of  course,  had  no  views  on  the  subject  at  all, 
which  was  just  what  Lord  Hartbloom  desired,  for  it 
made  the  road  clear  for  his  favorite  monologue  on 
the  efficiency  and  necessity  of  Government  by 
Caste. 

Octavia  came  into  the  saloon  just  in  time  to  hear  a 
ripple  of  laughter  and  an  unmistakable  "Hell!" 
from  Molly.  It  appeared  to  her  immediately  that 
the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame  would  have  to  be  kept 
under  strict  surveillance  for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

24I 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Accordingly,  very  much  against  Molly's  will,  she 
extracted  her  from  the  centre  of  her  admiring  audi- 
ence and  bore  her  away,  determined  to  run  no  more 
risks  from  her  undisciplined  vocabulary.  The  young 
men  marvelled  for  some  minutes  on  the  strange 
alliance  between  the  "old  crank"  whom  they  knew  as 
the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  and  this  "bubby"  girl, 
until  one  of  their  number  summed  up  the  position  by 
ejaculating,  with  real  feeling,  "What  a  waste  of  good 
material!" 

But  Molly  had  for  the  second  time  "tasted  blood," 
as  the  Earl  of  Edgeware  would  infallibly  have  put  it, 
and  she  was  very  little  subdued  even  in  the  company 
of  Lady  Octavia,  who  steered  her  skilfully  away 
from  the  younger  members  of  the  party  on  deck  and 
seemed  determined  not  to  lose  her  for  a  moment. 

Afar  off  she  sighted  the  Countess  and  her  husband, 
and,  having  no  knowledge  of  the  Earl's  fatal  diplo- 
macy, Lady  Blake  thought  it  would  be  no  bad  thing 
to  allow  the  old  lady  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
girl  whom,  in  her  husband's  absence,  they  considered 
it  their  duty  to  dethrone  altogether. 

"I  want  to  introduce  you  to  Henry's  godmother," 
she  said,  as  they  approached  the  melancholy  couple 
sitting  by  the  ship's  rail. 

"I'd  love  to,"  answered  Molly,  determined  to 
make  as  many  new  friends  as  possible  in  the  ex- 
hilaration of  her  newly  discovered  powers  of  at- 
traction. 

The  Earl  rose  at  their  approach. 

"Sit  down,  Edward,"  said  Helen  sharply. 

"No,  m'dear,"  returned  the  old  gentleman  in  a 
242 


COLLISION 

loud  whisper.  "I  will  not  sit  down.  I  insist  on  be- 
having myself." 

"Sit  down,"  she  repeated  severely. 

But  he  ignored  her.  His  wife's  attitude  appeared 
to  him  "unsporting,"  and  according  to  his  ideas  that 
was  the  last  word  on  the  subject.  Toward  this  storm 
Octavia  steered  her  bark  in  blissful  ignorance. 

"I  want  to  introduce  you,"  she  began,  "to  Henry's 

wife "  But  she  got  no  farther.  The  Countess 

stared  at  Molly  for  a  moment,  then  deliberately  rose 
and  turned  to  her  husband. 

"I  think,  Edward,"  she  said,  "it  is  time  that  we 
were  returning." 

The  old  Earl  was  obviously  very  distressed. 

"We  are  delighted "  he  began  haltingly,  but 

Lady  Helen  cut  him  short. 

"I  think  not,  Edward,"  she  said  icily. 

Lady  Octavia  was  utterly  bewildered.  She  could 
hardly  believe  her  ears.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  her  tongue  refused  to  come  to  her  aid.  She 
stood  staring  foolishly  first  at  the  Countess  and  then 
at  her  husband,  who  was  fidgeting  miserably  with  the 
handle  of  his  stick.  Out  of  the  corner  of  'her  eye 
she  noticed  Henry  and  a  small  collection  of  friends 
standing  near  by,  equally  thunderstruck. 

The  Duke  was  coming  forward  to  the  protection 
of  his  wife,  but  Molly  herself  forestalled  him.  It 
had  taken  her  a  few  moments  to  realize  what  had 
happened.  Now  the  full  knowledge  that  the  Coun- 
tess had  refused  to  receive  her  struck  her  like  the 
lash  of  a  whip.  A  few  hours  ago  she  would  prob- 
ably have  been  covered  with  shame  and  burst  into 

?43 


tears.  But  now  it  was  different.  During  the  last 
hour  she  had  learned  to  put  more  confidence  in  her- 
self. The  insult  brought  a  flush  of  anger  to  her 
cheeks.  She  looked  at  the  old  woman  and  saw  with 
the  unerring  disgust  of  healthy  youth  the  hideous 
painted  face  with  its  unseemly  conflict  between  the 
red  of  the  cheeks  and  the  age  in  the  eyes.  It  ap- 
peared to  her  a  monstrous  thing  that  she  should  not 
be  considered  fit  to  shake  hands  with  this  travesty  of 
an  old  woman.  She  had  never  seen  before  an 
example  of  the  world-old  struggle  to  make  youth 
work  overtime,  for  in  Bermondsey  they  have  neither 
the  means  nor  the  leisure  for  trying  to  conceal  the 
honorable  scars  of  age.  Thus  the  horror  and  the 
ugliness  of  it  struck  her  with  a  force  which  the  others, 
brought  up  to  regard  such  things  as  regrettable  ec- 
centricities, were  quite  unable  to  realize. 

She  lost  sight  of  her  surroundings,  and  saw  only 
the  cold  stare  of  her  antagonist  with  its  grotesque 
assumption  that  she  was  something  too  insignificant 
to  recognize.  Her  mind  leaped  back  in  one  bound 
to  the  days  when  she  played  in  mean  streets,  and 
when  blow  was  met  by  blow. 

"Not  good  enough,  aren't  I?"  she  cried,  her  eyes 
blazing.  "You're  a  hell  of  a  fine  lady,  aren't  you? 
I'm  dirt — that's  what  I  am !  Crikes !  I  don't  have 
to  paint  my  face  to  make  it  look  like  one,  any- 
way!" 

She  stopped,  out  of  breath. 

Suddenly  she  caught  sight  of  Octavia  staring  at 
her  from  the  rail.  She  became  conscious  of  the 
enormity  of  her  words.  The  cold,  crisp  utterance 

244 


COLLISION 

of  the  Countess  fell  upon  her  ears  in  a  sort  of  fearful 
monotone. 

"Perhaps,  Edward,"  she  was  saying,  "you  will 
take  me  downstairs.  This  is  not  a  very  pleasant 
scene." 

They  seemed  to  disappear  out  of  her  vision.  In- 
stead, she  saw  her  husband's  face,  his  eyes  meeting 
Octavia's,  a  slight  frown  on  his  forehead. 

It  was  all  over,  then,  and  she  had  disgraced  him,, 
after  all,  utterly  and  publicly  disgraced  him. 

It  seemed  miles  and  miles  away  that  the  orchestra 
was  playing  "God  Save  the  King."  She  turned  out 
of  the  little  circle  of  light  and  ran  blindly  into  the 
darkness.  Lady  Octavia  braced  herself  suddenly 
and  shivered  a  little. 

"The  dance  is  over,  Henry,"  she  said,  trying  to 
make  her  voice  natural.  "People  will  be  wishing  to 
say  good-by  to  you." 

She  noticed  suddenly  that  the  Duke's  face  looked 
very  white. 

"Damn  the  guests!"  he  said.  "I  am  going  to 
my  wife." 


245 


CHAPTER    XX 

"YOU  LITTLE  FOOL!" 

HENRY  disappeared  in  the  direction  in  which  Molly 
had  fled.  Though  he  was  more  angry  than  he  would 
ever  have  imagined  it  possible  for  him  to  be,  it  was 
because  the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame  had  been 
insulted,  and  not  because  Molly  had  suffered  hurt. 
Thus  he  was  not  altogether  without  the  pride  which 
Octavia  accused  him  of  lacking.  He  wished  to  find 
his  wife  in  order  that  they  two  might  stand  at  the 
head  of  the  accommodation  ladder  and  bid  god-speed 
to  the  departing  guests,  together  able  to  ignore  the 
bad  manners  of  the  Countess. 

But  he  did  not  find  her.  Instead,  he  ran  right 
into  Belle  Ellis,  who  was  just  about  to  leave  the  yacht 
and  was  looking  for  her  hostess,  quite  indifferent  to 
the  rather  dubious  position  which  was  now  hers  as 
regarded  Gerald's  mother.  For  the  tight-rope 
walker,  like  all  those  who  live  very  fast  and  under 
no  rules,  had  discovered  long  since  that  it  is  quite 
possible  to  leap  through  life  from  stepping-stone  to 
stepping  -  stone  without  bothering  about  little  ac- 
cidents en  route,  for  if  by  chance  one  should  get  a 
wetting  at  a  long-distance  jump,  does  not  the  damp 
quickly  dry?  Thus,  when  she  met  the  Duke,  she 
stopped  and  held  out  her  hand  gayly. 

"I'm  off!"  she  said  without  preamble.  "Don't 
suppose  you'll  ever  see  me  again,  so  I'll  say  'So 
long!'  I  like  you,  you  know.  You're  fresh."  She 
hesitated  a  moment.  "I'll  give  you  a  straight  tip," 

346 


"YOU   LITTLE    FOOL!" 

she  said.  "Don't  trust  that  rosebud  Duchess  of 
yours.  She's  caught  you,  I  know.  Take  the  word 
of  a  woman  who's  walked  the  high  wire  at  one-night 
stands  and  walked  Mayfair  drawing-rooms,  too. 
I  know  'em.  The  innocent,  clinging  kind.  Large, 
trustful,  baby  eyes  she  has,  hasn't  she  ?  They  don't 
miss  much,  those  sort  of  eyes." 

She  laughed  merrily. 

"Why,  I  used  to  work  that  innocent  stunt  myself," 
she  said,  "when  I  was  a  bit  younger.  You  see,  I'm 
like  the  conjurer  showing  how  he  does  the  trick. 
Nice  of  me,  isn't  it?  But,  as  I  say,  I  like  you. 
Now,  don't  go  and  get  moth-eaten  about  it.  I'm 
only  telling  you  for  your  own  good — see?" 

Never  in  his  life  had  Henry  come  across  a  thing 
like  this. 

"Good-by,  Miss  Ellis,"  he  said  stiffly.  "As  for 
my  wife,  I  prefer  to  trust  to  my  own  judgment." 
He  passed  on  quickly.  She  looked  after  him  and 
shook  her  head. 

"Mulish!"  she  murmured.  "Well,  it's  his  sort 
that  gives  me  a  chance.  Turns  up  the  pages  of  the 
marriage  service  before  he  knows  his  ABC.  Ohe ! 
Well,  I  warned  him;  I've  done  my  best  for  the 
old  guy!"  She  looked  up  at  the  masthead  light 
whimsically. 

"Say,  have  you  got  that  down  for  me,  Mr.  Record- 
ing Angel?"  she  said;  whereupon  she  slipped  quietly 
out  of  the  story  and  went  on  her  way,  to  play  other 
big  fish  in  other  waters,  and  gamble  desperately, 
with  the  little  lines  appearing  on  her  shapely  neck. 
But  she  was  not  without  her  influence  on  Henry's 

247 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

thoughts.  Octavia  had  told  him  at  once  that  he  had 
fallen  into  the  trap  which  had  been  laid  for  Gerald. 
Lady  Helen,  too,  had  apparently  taken  it  for 
granted.  The  wisdom  of  a  cosmopolitan  dipper 
into  the  world's  lucky-bags  had  not  even  considered 
any  alternative  as  possible.  And  they  were  all 
women,  who  presumably  knew  their  own  sex. 

Henry  was  not  seriously  disturbed,  but  it  was  a 
fact  that  the  first  enthusiasm  of  his  crusade  had  been 
rather  overwhelmed  by  the  rush  of  events  which  had 
followed  its  inception. 

He  pursued  the  quest  of  his  wife,  but  she  was 
nowhere  to  be  found,  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  she  must  have  left  the  yacht  by  one  of  the  numer- 
ous boats  which  had  been  requisitioned  for  the  con- 
venience of  his  guests.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she 
had  done  nothing  of* the  kind.  When  she  had  turned 
and  fled,  after  the  disaster  which  even  now  she  could 
hardly  realize  had  occurred,  her  one  thought  had 
been  to  hide  herself.  As  on  the  occasion  when  she 
first  noticed  the  fluttering  newspaper  placards  that 
had  lowered  her  marriage  to  the  indignity  of  a  cheap 
romance,  she  felt  the  whole  world  staring  at  her  with 
curious  and  pitying  eyes.  She  had  run,  blindly  at 
first,  out  of  the  light,  and  had  finally  found  a  dark 
corner  where  the  weird  shadows  of  a  high-swung 
lifeboat  drew  a  kindly  curtain  over  her,  as  she  stood 
clutching  the  rail  and  staring  with  tragic  eyes  out  to 
sea.  At  one  time  her  husband  actually  passed  her, 
and  she  heard  his  quick,  angry  steps  disappearing 
along  the  deck.  But  she  had  nothing  to  say  to  him 
— now.  Lady  .Octavia  was  right  in  her  prophecy. 

248 


"YOU   LITTLE    FOOL!" 

She  had  disgraced  him.  It  was  only  left  for  her  to 
get  out  of  his  life  as  quickly  and  as  quietly  as  possible. 
How  he  must  hate  her  I 

She  thought  of  all  that  had  happened  since 
yesterday.  Her  hopes  and  fears  at  Wynninghame 
Towers,  the  triumph  of  Mary's  frock,  the  thrill  she 
had  had  on  looking  in  the  glass  and  realizing  for  the 
first  time  her  own  loveliness,  the  admiration  of  the 
boys  on  the  yacht  and  the  gradual  victory  over  her 
own  self-distrust — and  then  the  final  catastrophe  with 
its  overwhelming  and  irremediable  disgrace. 

In  the  space  of  eight  hours  she  had  climbed  to  the 
very  top  of  her  ladder  of  life  and  fallen  again  to  the 
bottom.  She  realized  for  the  first  time  that  she  was 
physically  and  mentally  tired  out. 

She  looked  back  on  her  life  in  Bermondsey  and 
remembered  with  surprise  how  she  used  to  revel  in 
the  "silly  books."  How  very  silly  they  had  been! 
And  it  was  the  influence  of  these  that  had  led  her 
to  believe  that  her  great  love  for  her  dream-monger 
would  carry  her  over  every  difficulty.  The  omnip- 
otency  of  love,  then,  was  only  a  fiction.  It  was  not 
able  to  stand  alone,  after  all. 

Now  she  must  leave  him — of  that  she  had  no 
doubt.  She  would  no  longer  dream  of  cottages 
in  the  air.  She  had  lived  on  Romance,  fed  on 
Romance,  wedded  Romance — well,  now  she  must 
kneel  humbly  before  the  shrine  of  common  sense  and 
ask  for  a  job. 

As  for  her  new-found  crusade,  if  Henry  was  a 
lonely  man,  she  was  certainly  not  the  woman  destined 
to  explore  the  impenetrability  of  those  gray  eyes. 

249 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Yet,  as  she  said  it,  she  knew  that  she  was  standing 
by  the  death-bed  of  all  the  beauty  and  all  the  joy 
that  life  had  to  offer  her.  Even  had  he  never  grown 
to  love  her,  she  was  one  of  those  to  whom  real 
passion  only  comes  once,  and  simply  to  serve  him 
would  bring  to  her  a  far  greater  happiness  than  the 
love  of  any  other  man  could  give  her.  But  now  she 
could  serve  him  best  by  leaving  him.  And  there 
was  the  present  to  face.  She  had  to  get  off  the  yacht 
— alone,  if  it  was  possible.  She  looked  down  at 
Mary's  frock  and  longed  suddenly  to  tear  it  off.  It 
seemed  to  be  laughing  at  her.  It  belonged  to  the 
life  she  had  shown  herself  unfit  to  live.  It  was  not 
her  own,  just  as  the  manners,  the  customs,  and  the 
traditions  of  her  surroundings  were  not  her  own. 

With  an  effort  she  tore  herself  away  from  these 
thoughts.  She  must  go.  That  was  all  that  mat- 
tered. Where  she  was  to  go,  what  she  was  to  do, 
never  entered  her  head  except  that  home  now  was 
more  impossible  than  ever.  She  crept  out  of  her 
hiding-place  and  stood  still  for  a  moment  listening  to 
the  murmur  of  the  departing  guests  at  the  far  end 
of  the  yacht. 

That  was  where  the  boats  were — that  was  where 
she  must  go.  But  she  did  not  move.  She  could  not 
face  them;  it  was  impossible. 

And  as  she  stood  irresolute,  Henry  came  upon  her 
suddenly  out  of  the  shadows,  so  that  there  was  no 
time  for  escape  or  even  to  think  what  she  should  say 
to  him.  Her  husband  stopped,  surprised  at  seeing 
her,  for  he  had  thought  she  had  left  the  yacht. 

And  suddenly  it  flashed  upon  Molly  that  here  was 
250 


"YOU   LITTLE   FOOL!" 

her  opportunity  to  cut  the  knot.  She  had  heard  of 
Gerald's  fiancee  and  her  candid  admission.  She 
would  tell  him  she  had  only  married  him  for  his  title, 
and  that  she  had  not  thought  the  job  would  be  as 
difficult  as  it  had  turned  out  to  be  after  she  had  taken 
it  on.  Thus  she  would  cut  right  free  from  him,  and 
he  need  not  be  troubled  with  any  pity  for  her.  She 
gave  a  nervous  little  laugh. 

"I  think  this  is  the  finish,"  she  said,  "so  I  may  as 
well  tell  you  the  truth." 

He  had  been. about  to  answer  and  tell  her  that  he 
was  not  in  the  least  angry  with  her,  but  the  last  half 
of  her  sentence  cut  the  words  from  his  lips. 

"I  thought  I  could  bring  it  off,"  Molly  was  saying, 
"but  the  old  lady  with  the  painted  face  did  it  in." 

She  tried  to  give  an  imitation  of  the  inconsequent  - 
and  unembarrassed  manner  of  the  tight-rope  walker, 
and  anyone  but  Henry,  whom  the  sudden  suspicion 
of  what  sh  was  going  to  say  had  left  temporarily 
deaf  and  blind  to  other  considerations,  would  have 
noticed  the  false  tones  of  her  voice. 

"As  I  can't  do  it  I  don't  want  to  go  on  with  it," 
said  Molly  slowly.  "It  doesn't  seem  worth  the 
bother,  after  all." 

The  Duke  found  his  voice  at  last. 

"Will  you  please  explain  to  me  what  you  mean?" 
he  asked. 

"Isn't  it  as  clear  as  daylight?"  she  returned,  find- 
ing it  easier  to  keep  up  the  role  now  there  were  two 
of  them  in  the  scene.  "You  tossed  a  title  in  the  air 
for  me  to  catch,  and  of  course  I  caught  it.  Why 
not?  We've  all  got  to  live,  haven't  we?" 

251 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Do  you  mean,"  her  husband  asked,  "that  my 
sister  has  been  right — that  that  Ellis  woman  has 
been  right  about  you  all  the  time  ?" 

"Well,  of  course,"  Molly  forced  herself  to  say. 

"And  all  that  about  caring  for  me?" 

"Part  of  the  game,"  she  answered  bravely.  Even 
if  she  regretted  her  sudden  impulse,  it  was  too  late 
now. 

He  was  silent  for  a  few  moments.  So  his  crusade 
was  suffering  its  final  defeat  here  in  the  darkness 
where  the  whole  thing  was  being  turned,  in  a  few 
ruthless  words,  to  a  mockery,  with  a  commonplace 
adventuress  in  the  centre  of  the  picture. 

"You  have  been  very  clever,"  he  said  at  last. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  returned;  "I've  muddled  it  badly. 
It  is  you  that  have  been  very  foolish." 

"Somehow,"  said  Henry  slowly,  "somehow  I  have 
never  imagined  that  I  had  any  pearls  to  give,  or  that 
there  were  so  many  swine  ready  to  pick  them  up. 
I  can't  believe  it  now." 

The  words  cut  her  to  the  heart,  but  she  knew  that, 
as  he  now  mus'-  see  her,  they  were  only  her  due.  She 
managed  to  squeeze  out  another  of  the  tight-rope 
walker's  little  laughs. 

"Lucky  for  you,"  she  said,  "that  I've  turned  the 
job  up.  Doesn't  seem  to  me  that  there's  much  in 
being  a  Duchess,  after  all." 

This  was  the  girl,  thought  Henry,  whom  he  had 
found  in  the  Zoo,  longing  only  for  the  simple 
pleasures  of  two  pounds  a  week  and  unlimited 
novelettes. 

"And  the  Zoo  and  the  silly  books?"  he  asked. 
252 


"YOU   LITTLE    FOOL!" 

Oh!  why  had  he  reminded  her  of  that?  The 
memory  of  those  days  when  she  hugged  a  real 
romance  to  her  breast  tried  her  so  high  that  she 
almost  forgot  the  part  she  was  playing,  and  for  the 
first  time  since  she  had  spoken  those  dreadful  words 
to  the  Countess  the  tears  fought  hard  to  show  the 
Duke  that  she  was  only  acting  a  part.  But  she 
mastered  them  for  his  sake. 

"You  see,"  she  said  steadily,  "we  have  to  size  up 
people  and  see  what  tale's  going  to  work  with  them 
— that  game  seemed  the  best  to  me  with  your  kind — 
the  rest  was  easy — it  was  just  a  chance,  if  I  did  the 
wronged-woman-in-the-snow  business,  that  you'd  be 
foolish  enough  to  marry  me." 

"And  I  was,"  said  Henry,  almost  to  himself. 

"You  can  get  rid  of  me  easily  enough,"  she  went 
on,  fighting  hard  all  the  time  for  the  control  of  her 
voice.  "You  said  I  was  clever,  but  I'm  not  clever 
enough  for  this  game.  I've  got  to  fly  a  bit  lower." 

He  said  nothing.  Had  Lady  Octavia  been 
present,  Molly's  pitiful  imitation  of  an  adventuress 
would  not  have  deceived  her  for  a  moment.  Indeed, 
it  would  only  have  served  to  shatter  her  convictions 
on  the  subject.  It  merely  left  Henry  in  a  state  of 
complete  bewilderment. 

As  for  Molly,  meeting  the  steady  gaze  of  his  gray 
eyes  and  reading  in  them  half  at  least  of  what  was 
there,  she  felt  that  she  must  bring  the  little  drama 
to  an  end  if  she  was  to  play  her  part  through  without 
collapse. 

"So,  you  see,"  she  said,  with  a  last  and  valiant 
effort  at  unconcern,  "I'm  a  bad  lot  altogether,  and 

253 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

it's  lucky  for  you  I'm  not  keen  on  going  on  with  the 
Duchess  business." 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment,  then  suddenly 
turned  his  back  on  her  and  walked  slowly  away 
toward  the  lighted  stern  of  the  yacht.  She  stood 
looking  after  him  with  a  live  pain  in  her  eyes.  He 
disappeared,  and  she  realized  that  she  would  never 
see  him  again.  What  a  "good-by"  it  had  been! 
Her  hands  went  to  her  breast,  for  something  seemed 
tugging  at  her  heart  intolerably.  Suddenly  a  voice 
from  behind  startled  her. 

"You  little  fool!"  it  said. 

She  turned  and  saw  Mary  Blake,  standing  by  her 
side,  her  cloak  on,  ready  to  return  to  Wynninghame 
Towers. 

"You  little  fool !"  repeated  Mary.  A  gentle  smile 
played  round  the  lips  of  her  fresh  young  face,  a 
grave,  kindly  smile  of  wisdom  beyond  her  years,  the 
wisdom  of  a  pure  and  beautiful  nature  that  knew  by 
instinct  the  good  from  the  bad  and  the  dross  from 
the  gold.  The  little  light  on  the  masthead,  still  play- 
ing the  role  which  the  tight-rope  walker  had  assigned 
to  it,  the  role  of  the  Recording  Angel,  twinkled 
merrily.  So  Mary,  the  "dear,  sweet  girl"  whom 
nobody  ever  considered  seriously  for  a  moment,  the 
baby  of  Wynninghame  Towers,  who  really  only  oc- 
cupied Octavia's  mind  when  it  was  a  question  of  the 
new  season's  fashions,  was  going  to  take  a  hand  in 
the  game,  armed  only  with  a  splendid  desire  to  share 
her  own  happiness  in  life  with  all  her  fellows,  and 
the  clear  vision  of  nineteen  years. 

"You  little  fool!"  said  Mary. 
254 


CHAPTER    XXI 

THE    MADNESS   OF   MARY 

HENRY  felt  a  tap  on  his  arm  as  he  emerged  on  to 
the  now  almost  deserted  scene  of  the  dance.  It  was 
the  Earl  of  Edgeware,  who  was  standing  at  his  side, 
his  fine  old  face  quite  drawn  with  distress. 

"My  dear  Henry,"  he  began,  a  little  stiffly,  "I 
feel  I  cannot  depart  without  letting  you  know — 
without  assuring  you,  that  is — what  I  mean  to 
say  is  that  I  feel  I  owe  it  to  you  to  express  .  |.:  . 
to  .  .  . "  Here  the  old  gentleman  broke  down. 
"Oh,  it  was  damnable — damnable,"  he  muttered. 
He  gripped  his  stick  till  the  knuckles  of  his  hands 
stood  out  white.  "I  can't  apologize  for  Helen,"  he 
said  at  last.  "You  will  understand  that.  There  are 
things  a  man  can't  get  himself  to  say — but  . 
but  I'd  like  you  to  know,  Henry,  I'd  like  you  to 

know "     He  could  get  no   farther.     Had  he 

himself  been  in  the  wrong  his  apology  would  have 
been  an  easy  matter,  for  he  was  a  man  whose  sense 
of  the  nobilities  of  life  was  conspicuous  even  among 
his  kind.  But  this  thing  he  felt  to  be  beyond  him. 
He  cleared  his  throat  noisily  and  rapped  his  stick 
upon  the  deck.  "Stiffest  jump  I  ever  faced  in  my 
life,"  he  said  abruptly. 

"I  quite  understand,"  returned  Henry.  "I  can 
assure  you,  Edgeware,  that  the  whole  thing  is  of  no 
consequence  whatever." 

255 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Earl  shook  hands  with  the  Duke,  grateful  for 
the  way  he  had  taken  the  unfortunate  affair,  but  went 
down  the  side  wondering  whether  he  was  quite  fit  to 
be  a  husband,  after  all. 

Only  a  few  of  the  departing  guests  had  actually 
witnessed  the  scene  with  the  Countess,  but  others  had 
of  course  heard  of  what  had  occurred,  and  most  real- 
ized, with  that  subtle  telepathy  that  pervades  man- 
kind where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together,  that 
something  had  happened  to  mar  the  end  of  the  eve- 
ning. Not  that  any  hint  of  catastrophe  was  to  be 
gathered  from  Octavia's  demeanor.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  seemed  even  brighter  and  more  brilliant 
than  usual  as  she  stood  at  the  head  of  the  big  accom- 
modation ladder,  exchanging  farewells  with  the  last 
of  her  departing  friends  and  acquaintances  and  re- 
ceived their  assurances  that  the  evening  had  been 
simply  too  delightful  for  words. 

The  last  of  them  was  finally  over  the  side  and 
only  the  party  from  the  Towers  remained  on  the 
yacht. 

"Well,  Henry,"  said  Octavia,  "good-by !  I  hope 
you  will  have  a  very  successful  voyage,  though  I  am 
afraid  that  in  hunting  for  the  golden  toad  you  are 
only  again  testing  your  usual  belief  in  the  things  that 
are  not." 

"Perhaps,"  replied  the  Duke.  "As  for  this  eve- 
ning's affair "  he  went  on,  but  Octavia  cut  him 

short. 

"We'll  not  speak  of  that,  Henry,"  she  said.  "I 
will  see  Lady  Helen  later,  and  it  can  all  be  smoothed 
over." 

256 


THE    MADNESS    OF   MARY 

"I  would  never  have  believed,"  he  returned,  "that 
my  godmother  could  have  behaved  like  that." 

"She  is  getting  old,"  Octavia  made  answer,  "and 
is  losing  her  grip  of  things.  It  is  not  the  first  time 
I  have  noticed  it.  All  the  same " 

But  Henry  had  already  drifted  away,  and  her 
words  were  lost  on  the  air.  The  Duke  had  been  hit 
hard,  and  now  he  sat,  for  a  long  time,  an  unlighted 
cigarette  in  his  mouth  and  the  beginnings  of  a 
smoldering  fire  in  his  heart. 

Molly  did  not  want  to  hear  what  Mary  had  to  say. 
She  wished  only  to  get  away  from  the  yacht  and  be 
alone  with  her  dead.  She  was  tired;  she  wanted  to 
let  it  all  alone.  She  felt  she  was  losing  control  of 
herself,  and  she  was  experiencing  the  terrifying  sen- 
sations of  the  beginning  of  hysteria.  She  stared  at 
the  younger  girl  stupidly,  and  then,  with  a  jerky, 
inconsequent  gesture,  turned  as  if  to  go  away. 

But  she  felt  her  hands  suddenly  imprisoned  in 
Mary's  grip. 

"Cry,  you  silly  little  idiot — cry,  quick!"  she  heard 
her  saying  sharply.  It  was  the  unerring  touch  of  the 
artist  in  sympathy.  With  a  great  sob  Molly  set  free 
the  imprisoned  tears  born  of  the  last  hour,  and, 
with  her  head  on  Mary's  breast  and  her  wonderful 
coiffure  tumbling  in  mad  disorder  round  her  face, 
wept  with  all  the  hopeless  abandon  of  one  whose 
sorrows  are  past  mending.  As  for  Mary,  she  gently 
pushed  back  the  riotous  hair  from  her  patient's  eyes, 
and  took  no  notice  of  the  ruin  which  Molly's  grief 
was  making  of  her  latest  frock. 

257 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Listen  1"  she  said  at  last.  "Try  to  stop  crying 
now.  There  isn't  much  time,  and  I've  got  to  go. 
I  heard  the  last  words  you  were  saying  to  Uncle 
Henry.  What  have  you  been  telling  him?" 

"The  truth,"  Molly  managed  to  say  between  the 
tears. 

Mary  raised  the  tumbled  head  from  her  shoulder. 

"No,"  she  said;  "it  wasn't  the  truth — was  it?" 

"I  want  him  to  believe  it,"  answered  Molly.  She 
knew  she  could  not  deceive  this  girl.  Mary  was 
silent  for  a  moment. 

"I  know  what  is  the  matter  with  you,"  she  said. 
"You  love  him — don't  you?" 

"Like  hell,"  said  Molly,  in  complete  surrender. 
She  was  too  tired  to  fight  any  more. 

"Doesn't  he  know  it?"  asked  the  younger  girl. 

"He  never  knew  how  much,"  sobbed  Molly. 
-*'He  couldn't  know  how  much.  But  what's  the  use? 
It's  all  over  now — and  I've  disgraced  him." 

"It  is  worse,"  returned  Mary,  "to  have  told  him 
a  lie." 

"I  want  him  to  be  quite  free  of  me." 

Mary  shook  her  head. 

"You  love  him  too  much,  and  you  can  give  him  too 
much  for  that." 

"No,  no,"  said  Molly  brokenly;  "he  doesn't  want 


me." 


"He  doesn't  know  what  he  wants,"  she  answered 
shrewdly.  "He  never  has,  all  his  life;  you  know 
that." 

Molly  shook  her  head. 

258 


THE    MADNESS    OF   MARY 

"I've  disgraced  him,"  she  repeated  slowly;  "dis- 
graced him." 

The  siren  sounded  warningly  behind  them. 

"They  all  tell  me  I'm  just  a  silly  romantic  little  kid, 
you  know,"  said  Mary  suddenly,  "but  I  can  tell  you 
the  thing  for  you  to  do,  all  the  same."  Her  heart 
leaped  suddenly  at  the  preposterous  idea  which  had 
just  come  into  her  head. 

Molly  looked  up  at  her. 

"There's  nothing  to  do  now,"  she  said. 

"There's  only  one  thing,"  answered  Mary.  "Go 
with  him !  The  boat's  just  going  to  start.  Stick  to 
him  like" — she  smiled  quickly — "like  hell!"  she 
added,  catching  one  of  Molly's  hands  in  hers. 

"Don't  you  see?"  she  went  on.  "What  chance 
have  you  had  of  showing  him  how  much  he  wants 
you?  What's  the  good  of  telling  him  a  lie  and 
never  seeing  him  again?" 

"But  it's  impossible,"  said  Molly,  staring  at  her, 
suddenly  dry-eyed. 

"Why?"  cried  the  romantic  Mary.  "Doesn't 
Uncle*  Henry  always  believe  in  impossible  things?" 

"He'll  send  me  back!"  The  bare  idea  of  this 
incredible  adventure  made  the  Duchess  give  a  final 
clutch  at  her  own  elusive  Romance. 

"If  I  loved  a  man,"  Mary  retorted,  "I'd  risk  any- 
thing to  stick  to  him." 

"But  I've  told  him  I'm  all  wrong;  what  could 
I  say?" 

"Say?"  cried  Mary.  "Tell  him  to  look  at  you; 
tell  him  to  sit  and  watch  you;  ask  him  if  he  ever  saw 
a  bad  woman  with  eyes  like  yours.  You  needn't  say 

259 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

anything — you're  a  silly  romantic  kid,  like  me — it's 
advertised  all  over  you." 

The  madness  of  Mary  was  infectious.  This  last 
straw  that  had  appeared  on  the  waters  before  the 
drowning  votary  of  Romance  was  growing  bigger 
and  bigger  and  rounder  and  rounder,  until  at  last, 
when,  with  a  quick  gesture,  she  brushed  the  last  of 
her  tears  from  her  eyelashes,  it  seemed  that  a  life- 
belt was  bobbing  up  and  down  before  her.  But  it 
was  mad — mad,  she  thought.  It  was  the  very  chap- 
ter and  verse  of  the  silly  books  which  had  proved 
such  broken  reeds  upon  which  to  lean  one's  way  of 
life.  Yet  here  was  Mary  holding  her  hand  and  look- 
ing eagerly  into  her  face  with  her  clear  blue  eyes, 
urging  her  to  commit  herself  to  this  most  incredible 
of  adventures. 

"My  crikesl"  said  the  Duchess,  her  eyes  shin- 
ing. 

Without  a  doubt  one  of  heaven's  most  splendid 
gifts  to  humanity  are  the  follies  and  irresponsibilities 
of  youth.  Yet  while  we  are  young  we  undervalue 
the  joy  of  our  mistakes,  and  if  when  older  we  regard 
the  loss  of  this  capacity  for  unreasonable  behavior 
a  little  regretfully,  we  are  bound,  even  the  bachelors 
and  spinsters  of  us,  to  a  conspiracy  of  silence  for 
the  sake  of  our  paterfamilias  friends.  To  most  of  us 
the  best  time  in  our  lives  was  when  we  attained  to 
years  of  indiscretion. 

After  all,  if  wisdom  is  the  knowledge  of  how  to 
live,  one  need  be  no  wiser  at  fifty  than  at  twenty. 
An  ability  to  count  the  cost  may  cause  one  to  miss 
the  heights,  while  foolish  youth  may  reach  the  top 

260 


THE   MADNESS    OF   MARY 

without  knowing  how  he  got  there.  But  he  has 
arrived,  and  it  is  no  use  for  middle  age  to  shout 
through  a  megaphone  that  he  has  no  right  to  be 
where  he  is. 

To  the  two  girls  the  idea  of  going  to  sea  as  a 
stowaway  in  an  evening  frock  appeared  romantic  but 
not  preposterous.  To  Molly  it  seemed  the  last 
hope.  Her  ambition  always  had  been  to  get  Henry 
alone — Henry  without  his  surroundings.  So,  she 
had  thought,  she  might  start  digging  for  the  treasure 
that  lay  behind  those  blue-gray  eyes. 

Many,  after  all,  have  suffered  far  more  perilous 
adventures  for  the  sake  of  the  magic  words,  Buried 
Treasure;  mere  gold,  too,  has  been  their  incentive. 
The  querulous  note  of  the  siren  broke  again  into  her 
thoughts. 

"But  how — how?"  she  cried  suddenly. 

"In  the  boat,"  returned  Mary.  "Hide  as  long  as 
you  can.  Let  them  get  well  out  to  sea.  There'll 
be  less  likelihood  of  his  putting  back." 

She  disappeared  suddenly,  and  Molly  stood  alone 
for  a  few  moments  face  to  face  with  the  absurd 
adventure  she  had  undertaken.  But  Mary  was  back 
before  she  had  had  time  to  think  much  about  it.  In 
her  hands  she  held  a  large  slice  of  iced  cake  and 
a  dish  in  which  there  la^  half  a  trifle. 

"It  was  all  I  could  get,"  she  explained  breath- 
lessly, "but  it  is  something." 

Molly  found  herself  carried  off  her  feet  by  the 
enthusiasm  of  this  child.  As  she  climbed  with  diffi- 
culty into  the  great  lifeboat  whose  shadow  had  served 
as  a  curtain  for  her  disgrace,  a  dreadful  sound  told 

261 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

her  that  Mary's  dress  had  failed  to  survive  the  eve- 
ning's events. 

"Oh !"  she  said.     "That's  your  frock  1" 

"Yours,"  returned  Mary  quickly.  "My  wed- 
ding present,"  she  added  with  an  excited  little 
laugh. 

She  could  now  see  only  the  head  and  shoulders 
of  the  Duchess  standing  out  from  under  the  boat's 
coverings.  Molly  looked  down  at  her  in  surprise. 
She  seemed  to  be  much  farther  up  than  she  had 
imagined. 

"It's  mad,"  she  whispered;  "perfectly  mad  I  But 
I  don't  believe  I  could  get  down  if  I  wanted  to." 

"Do  you  want  to?"  She  heard  Mary's  voice 
come  up  from  the  darkness. 

"No,"  she  whispered  in  return. 

They  discovered  that  their  hands  could  just  touch 
if  Mary  tiptoed. 

"I  must  go,"  she  whispered.  "I  know  that  you 
are  doing  the  right  thing,  though  it's  like  a  fairy  tale. 
Don't  you  feel  it's  right?" 

"Yes,"  returned  Molly  bravely,  though  she  knew 
that  when  Mary  had  gone  she  was  going  to  feel  very 
lonely  and  frightened  indeed. 

A  faint  voice  from  far  down  the  deck  told  them 
that  Peter  Graine  was  calling  for  her.  The  party 
from  the  Towers  was  about  to  leave. 

Mary  clasped  one  of  the  Duchess's  fingers  in  the 
dark. 

"Good-by !"  she  said.     "Good  luck  1" 

But  Molly  found  that  the  words  she  wanted  to 
say  were  choked.  However  the  adventure  ended, 

262 


THE   MADNESS    OF   MARY 

she  was  grateful  to  this  girl  who  should  have  been 
her  enemy,  but  had  been  her  only  friend. 

A  little  rustle  down  there  among  the  ropes  and 
things,  and  Mary  was  gone. 

A  ridiculous  pair  of  children,  were  they  not? 
Yet  the  bold  spirit  that  loves  to  embrace  the  wild 
improbabilities  of  life  lay  behind  this  little  enter- 
prise, just  as  it  has  fathered  some  of  the  biggest 
adventures  in  the  world's  history.  The  goddesses 
of  the  Sublime  and  the  Ridiculous  are  on  quite  good 
terms  sometimes.  At  this  moment  they  were  kissing 
one  another. 

The  Professor  met  Mary  as  she  emerged  into 
the  light. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "what  have  you  been  doing?" 

"Just  wondering,"  answered  Mary,  "what  I'd  do 
if  I  loved  a  man." 

"You  romantic  child  I"  he  said.  "You  go  wander- 
ing along,  gazing  at  the  stars  with  your  mouth  wide 
open " 

"And  sometimes,"  she  finished  his  sentence  for 
him,  "a  star  falls  right  into  my  mouth." 

"Peter,"  whispered  Octavia,  as  they  finally  went 
over  the  side,  "I  did  not  see  that  girl  go  off  .  .  . 
I  suppose  .  .  ." 

"In  one  of  the  small  boats,  Octavia,  "  he  returned. 
"Obviously  she  would  try  to  escape  notice." 

"Obviously,"  answered  Octavia  coldly.  The 
plash  of  oars  died  away  in  the  noise  of  preparation 
for  the  yacht's  departure. 

The  Professor  lit  a  last  cigar  and  wandered  along 
the  deck.  He  inquired  for  Henry  and  discovered 

263 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

from  Dunn  that  the  Duke  had  already  retired  to 
his  cabin  for  the  night. 

Peter  wandered  away  to  look  for  a  chair.  It 
appeared  that  Henry  had  really  been  disturbed  at 
last.  He  found  a  seat  by  the  rail  under  a  lifeboat 
and  puffed  thoughtfully  at  his  cigar.  What  a  wild 
and  inconsequent  week  it  had  been!  But  the  gods 
had  fought  on  their  side.  What  a  wise  woman 
Octavia  was!  Really,  these  affairs  we  are  wont  to 
call  catastrophes  were  quite  easy  to  deal  with  if  one 
kept  one's  head.  One  should  behave  reasonably — 
like  a  man  of  the  world.  After  all,  incredible  things 
didn't  happen — couldn't  happen — anyway,  one  could 
always  prevent  them  from  happening.  .  .  .  She 
had  been  such  a  pretty  woman,  too.  But  then,  every- 
one ought  to  be  sensible  .  .  .  level  -  headed. 
That  was  at  the  root  of  a  well-ordered  life  .  .  . 
He  could  not  help  feeling  sorry  for  the  girl,  but  fairy 
tales  were  demoralizing. 

His  cigar  went  out  and  he  struck  another  match. 

Over  his  head,  still  as  a  mouse  in  the  bottom  of 
the  lifeboat,  the  Duchess  heard  him  strike  that  match 
and  feared  to  move  a  muscle.  A  rhythmic  kind  of 
buzz  told  her  that  the  yacht  was  standing  out  to 
sea.  She  reached  out  a  hand  cautiously  toward  her 
larder  and  plunged  it  clumsily  into  the  trifle.  After 
a  moment's  reflection  she  began  silently  to  lick  her 
hand. 

Beneath  her  the  man  who  did  not  believe  in  fairy 
tales  smoked  comfortably. 


264 


CHAPTER    XXII 

AN  ADVENTURESS   IN   TROUSERS 

AT  breakfast  the  Duke  appeared  to  Peter  abso- 
lutely unaffected  by  the  events  of  the  preceding 
night.  He  spoke  with  his  usual  enthusiasm  of  the 
chances  of  discovering  the  toad,  and  triumphantly 
dangling  the  result  in  the  faces  of  von  Rosen  and 
his  companions.  He  discussed  at  length  the  methods 
to  be  adopted  on  reaching  the  island.  He  made 
maps  with  forks  and  salt-cellars  and  seemed  to  the 
Professor  entirely  absorbed  in  the  enterprise.  Peter 
himself  made  no  reference  to  the  Duchess.  Octavia 
had  triumphed.  Sympathy  was  unnecessary,  exulta- 
tion out  of  place.  Let  things  take  their  very  excel- 
lent course,  thought  the  Professor,  who  was  looking 
forward  with  zest  to  his  change  of  air  after  the 
enervating  effects  of  Paris. 

Henry  took  his  pipe  away  on  to  the  upper  deck, 
arranged  a  canvas  chair,  and,  sinking  into  it  luxuri- 
ously, settled  down  to  resume  his  life  where  he  had 
left  it  a  fortnight  ago. 

It  was  not  so  easy. 

The  Duchess  of  Wynninghame  was  an  adven- 
turess ;  it  appeared  that  in  saying  that  he  had  dragged 
the  family  in  the  dirt  his  sister  had  been  right,  after 
all.  That  alone  was  a  sufficiently  disquieting  reflec- 
tion. He  supposed  vaguely  that  machinery  would 
be  set  in  motion  to  undo  the  knot'  and  return  Molly 

265 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

to  her  status  quo.  But  that,  also,  was  a  most  un- 
pleasant business. 

Then  there  was  the  girl  herself. 

It  was  not  that  Henry  missed  her,  for  he  could 
never  have  been  said  to  have  had  her  companion- 
ship, but  it  was  a  disturbing  thought  that  she  had 
come  into  his  life  and  left  it,  and  gone — where  ? 

It  didn't  matter,  of  course,  but  there  it  was — like 
a  maggot  in  his  brain.  He  reminded  himself  that 
these  uncomfortable  feelings  would  vanish  in  a  day 
or  two.  Undoubtedly  at  present  he  was  too  near 
the  affairs  of  yesterday.  As  for  his  crusade,  it  was 
not  really  affected  one  way  or  another.  The  subject 
it  had  experimented  upon  had  been  unworthy — that 
was  all.  He  woke  up  suddenly  to  the  fact  that  it 
was  lunch-time.  Really,  he  was  wasting  a  disgrace- 
ful amount  of  time  on  an  incident  that  was  finished. 

He  spent  the  afternoon  revising  his  classification 
of  toads.  It  was  d,  less  interesting  document  than 
he  had  imagined. 

As  for  Peter,  he  marvelled,  even  with  his  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  man,  at  Henry's  capacity  for 
ignoring  disaster. 

The  Duke's  custom,  when  on  board  the  "Cobra," 
was  to  take  half  an  hour's  sharp  exercise  round  the 
boat  before  tea.  Peter's  custom  was  to  take  no 
exercise  at  all.  For  his  purpose,  Henry  was  wont 
to  change  into  a  pair  of  white  running  shorts  and 
a  blazer.  In  these  he  would  run  round  the  ship's 
decks  for  half  an  hour  without  a  stop.  Nothing  was 
allowed  to  interfere  with  this.  Thus,  at  four  o'clock 
the  Professor,  half  asleep  in  a  deck-chair,  saw  him 

266 


AN   ADVENTURESS    IN   TROUSERS 

emerge  from  his  room  ready  for  his  daily  per- 
formance. 

"Really,  Henry,"  he  ejaculated  with  a  yawn, 
"what  energy  you  have !  In  this  heat,  too  1" 

"Mens  sana "  began  the  Duke;  but  Peter  cut 

him  short. 

"Youl"  he  ejaculated.  "Never  mind;  don't  dis- 
turb me." 

Henry  went  down  to  the  accustomed  starting- 
place,  where  a  member  of  the  crew  invariably  sent 
him  off  by  a  stop-watch  so  that  an  accurate  half- 
hour's  exercise  should  be  registered. 

The  Duke  started  away  briskly. 

Now  Molly  had  caught  a  violent  cold  in  the  head. 
It  is  of  no  use  disguising  these  things,  though  it  is 
true  that  they  are  entirely  unromantic.  The  pro- 
cesses of  nature  will  not  adapt  themselves  to  the 
vagaries  of  human  imagination,  and  Nature,  finding 
herself  outraged  by  a  girl  in  an  evening  frock  spend- 
ing the  night  in  the  bottom  of  a  lifeboat,  took  instant 
and  dire  revenge.  The  Duchess  had  had  the  most 
miserable  night  she  had  ever  experienced.  The  mo- 
tion of  the  ship  had  made  her  feel  extremely  ill,  and 
the  continual  patrolling  of  the  watch  beneath  her 
had  made  it  impossible  even  to  peep  out  of  her 
prison. 

The  night  had  seemed  interminable,  for  she  had 
been  quite  unable  to  sleep,  partly  because  of  her 
mental  agitation,  partly  because  of  the  cold  and  her 
uncomfortable  quarters.  The  cake  she  had  eaten; 
but  the  trifle,  early  in  the  night,  while  she  was  try- 
ing to  attain  a  more  comfortable  position,  had  been 

267 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

inconsiderate  enough  to  upset.     In  the  total  dark- 
ness it  had  proved  quite  impossible  to  mop  it  up. 

Thus  toward  morning  she  discovered  that  prac- 
tically everything  she  touched  had  its  quota  of  trifle. 
Her  frock  seemed  covered  with  it,  her  fingers  were 
sticky,  she  located  a  little  dump  of  it  in  her  hair 
and  another  in  her  shoe.  Under  these  conditions 
Romance  becomes  putty-colored,  and  as  the  first 
rod  of  light  crept  in  under  her  tarpaulin  covering 
Molly  added  her  tears  to  the  mess,  from  pure  dis- 
comfort and  weariness. 

Later,  in  the  half-light  which  did  duty  for  day 
in  her  quarters,  she  regarded  herself  with  horror 
and  wondered  how  she  could  ever  have  the  courage 
to  make  her  appearance.  The  inevitable  ravages 
of  a  night  as  a  stowaway  had  never  occurred  to  her. 
Also,  as  has  been  said,  she  found  herself  with  a  vio- 
lent cold  in  the  head. 

She  stroked  her  nose  gently;  it  was  hot.  That 
meant,  she  thought,  that  it  was  red  .  ..  .  and 
shiny.  Another  tear  trickled  down  her  cheek,  found 
a  comfortable  bed  of  trifle  on  her  chin,  and  came 
to  rest. 

Oh,  for  Annie  and  a  looking-glass!  She  dared 
not  even  touch  her  hair  for  fear  of  what  she  might 
find. 

She  raised  herself  and  peeped  out  under  the  boat's 
cover  on  the  side  toward  the  sea.  The  water  was 
blue  and  fresh;  the  sun  was  making  rainbows 
through  the  crests  of  the  waves.  She  experienced 
the  feeling  which  we  all  have  after  a  bad  night,  the 
feeling  of  being  a  disgrace  to  Nature. 

268 


AN    ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

She  had  no  idea  of  the  time,  but  judged  from 
the  light  of  the  sun  that  it  must  be  after  midday. 
Greatly  daring,  she  raised  the  tarpaulin  on  the  ship's 
side  and  looked  out  on  to  the  deck.  There  was  no 
one  in  sight.  She  wriggled  a  bit  farther  out  of  the 
boat.  Suddenly  she  heard  the  quick  footsteps  of  a 
man  running.  She  made  a  violent  effort  to  draw 
back,  but  the  folds  of  the  tarpaulin  caught  her  by 
the  shoulders  and  held  her  firmly.  Henry  came  in 
sight  on  his  third  round.  He  was  running  strongly 
but  unprofessionally,  with  his  head  down  and  his 
shoulders  bowed.  Molly  held  her  breath  as  he  ap- 
proached. 

Then,  of  course,  Fate  came  up  behind  and  kicked 
her  over  the  precipice. 

She  sneezed  violently. 

She  made  another  effort  to  retire  into  her  fast- 
ness, but  it  was  too  late,  and  Henry,  stopping,  dis- 
gusted at  this  interruption  of  his  exercise,  and  look- 
ing up,  saw  a  sight  calculated  to  make  a  cat  laugh 
or  a  clown  weep,  according  as  you  regard  the 
situation. 

The  Duchess's  head  was  sticking  out  from  the 
black  tarpaulin,  making  spasmodic  efforts  to  dis- 
appear. Her  hair,  in  hopeless  disorder  and  matted 
in  places  with  the  sticky  trifle,  tumbled  about  her 
head  in  grotesque  and  shapeless  confusion.  Across 
her  cheek  lay  a  great  line  of  black,  where  her  face 
had  encountered  some  treacherous  tar  at  the  bottom 
of  the  boat.  Her  eyes  were  red  with  crying  and  her 
nose  with  rheum.  She  looked  down  at  Henry  with 

269 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

a  frightened  stare,  still  trying  vainly  to  get  out  of 
sight. 

This  ridiculous  picture,  then,  was  the  result  of 
trying  to  graft  the  gospel  of  the  silly  books  on  to 
the  uncompromising  circumstances  of  real  life. 
When  one  becomes  ridiculous  one  is  apt  to  wonder 
whether  there  was  ever  anything  sublime  about  the 
affair  at  all. 

Molly  sneezed  again. 

"I  can't  get  down,"  she  said  at  last. 

"How  did  you  get  up?"  asked  the  Duke. 

"It  didn't  seem  so  far  in  the  dark,"  she  returned. 
She  was  not  going  to  involve  Mary  in  the  conse- 
quences of  this  absurd  affair. 

The  Duke  thrust  his  hands  into  his  blazer 
pockets. 

"You  will  certainly  have  pneumonia,"  he  said,  "if 
you  are  not  careful." 

"How  can  I  be  careful,"  answered  the  Duchess 
tearfully,  "when  I'm  up  here  and  can't  get  down?" 

At  that  moment  Mr.  Peters,  the  second  officer, 
came  into  sight  and  stopped,  about  a  dozen  yards 
from  the  Duke,  astonished  at  the  picture  before  him. 
Henry  turned  to  him  at  once. 

"This  is  my  wife,  Peters,"  he  said.  "She  can't 
get  down." 

The  young  seaman,  though  he  had  been  in  the 
employ  of  the  Duke  of  Wynninghame  for  some 
time,  was  not  inured  altogether  to  the  infinite  possi- 
bilities of  his  master's  peculiar  temperament,  and  he 
did  not  respond  immediately  to  the  invitation. 

"Well,  Peters,"  remarked  Henry  plaintively, 
270 


AN   ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

"cain't  anything  be  done  ?  It  is  wry  uncomfortable 
for  my  wife  up  there." 

"Why,  of  course,  your  Grace,"  answered  the  offi- 
cer, pulling  himself  together.  "If  her  Grace  will 
allow  me  .  .  . " 

With  the  peculiar  ease  of  long  practice  he  swung 
himself  up  to  the  boat  and  freed  Molly  from  the 
obnoxious  tarpaulin.  The  descent,  with  the  aid  of 
Henry  from  below,  was  easily  accomplished.  Then 
the  sailor,  diving  into  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  re- 
trieved the  plate  and  the  glass  dish  in  which  Molly's 
unhappy  larder  had  rested.  With  these  he  descended 
to  the  deck. 

The  Duch'i^  looked  at  her  husband  anxiously, 
but  apparently  Ifo  was  going  to  say  nothing. 

"Please,"  she  -^lurmured  to  the  sailor,  who  stood 
awkwardly  by,  wondering  whether  he  was  expected 
to  disappear,  "please  don't  say  anything  about 
this." 

He  touched  his  hat  to  her. 

"Of  course  not,  your  Grace,"  he  answered,  and 
departed  below  'decks. 

Henry  realized  that  in  certain  circumstances  it 
was  an  advantage  to  have  a  wife  whose  dignity  was 
not  above  saying  what,  unfortunately,  had  to  be 
said.  It  was  lucky  for  them  that  Peters  was  a  young 
man  with  a  very  nice  sense  of  honor  and  an  unusual 
predilection  toward  minding  his  own  business. 

The  Duke  conducted  Molly  to  his  cabin,  where 
she  sat  herself  down  on  his  bunk  and  prepared  to 
throw  herself  on  his  mercy. 

"In  the  light  of  what  you  said  last  night," 
271 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Henry  began,  "this  requires  a  certain  amount  of 
explanation." 

She  sneezed  violently. 

"I  must  get  some  other  clothes,"  she  said;  "I'm 
dreadfully  cold.  I'll  tell  you  everything  directly 
I'm  warm." 

Her  coldness  seemed  at  the  moment  the  only 
thing  that  mattered. 

"But,"  said  the  Duke,  "we  have  no  clothes." 

He  produced  a  large  silk  dressing-gown  from  a 
cupboard. 

"This,"  he  said,  "has  at  any  rate  been  called 
effeminate  by  Peter." 

She  took  it  from  him  and  folded  h  round  her. 

"These  things  I've  got  on  are  -all  damp,"  she 
said.  "That's  what's  making  me  so  cold." 

"Well,"  he  returned,  "you  had  better  have  a  hot 
bath;  you  can  get  one  next  door.  But  that,"  he 
added,  "is  as  far  as  my  imagination  will  carry  me." 

He  showed  her  the  bathroom  and  went  out  of 
the  cabin.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  man  that  he 
continued  his  exercise  at  the  point  where  it  had  been 
interrupted. 

When  Molly  saw  herself  in  the  glass  she  almost 
dissolved  into  tears.  Here  she  was,  sticking  to  him 
and  making  a  last  effort  to  make  him  give  her  some 
sort  of  attention,  and  the  first  thing  she  had  done 
was  to  show  him  this  hideous  picture  of  herself. 
She  took  off  her  clothes,  which  she  found  to  be  even 
damper  than  she  had  thought,  and  plunged  into  the 
big  bath.  The  hot  water  sent  the  blood  coursing 
through  -her  veins  and  brought  back  her  ebbing 

272 


AN   ADVENTURESS   IN   TROUSERS 

courage.  After  all,  here  she  was,  on  the  high  seas, 
with  the  dream-monger — practically  alone.  If  she 
could  not  work  the  miracle  now,  she  never  would. 
As  for  getting  rid  of  her,  short  of  throwing  her  over- 
board or  setting  her  adrift  in  an  open  boat,  Henry 
had  got  to  put  up  with  her.  The  big  sponge  which 
she  found  on  the  bath-tray  seemed  to  wash  away  the 
memory  of  last  night  with  every  douche  that  ran 
down  her  back.  After  all,  things  weren't  so  bad. 
Anyway,  though  it  had  started  badly,  she  was  going 
to  have  her  chance.  There  is  nothing  like  a  well- 
filled  hot  bath  for  making  one  regard  life  from  the 
right  angle.  She  began  to  kick  and  splash  happily. 

But  as  the  water  grew  cooler,  she  peeped  over  the 
edge  of  the  bath  at  the  crumpled  heap  that  now 
represented  Mary's  wedding  present  and  began  to 
wonder  what  she  had  better  do  next. 

She  could  not  appear  again  in  that  torn  and  be- 
trifled  frock.  Besides,  it  was  too  wet.  She  got 
out  and  began  drying  herself,  protracting  the  opera- 
tion longer  and  longer  as  she  began  to  realize  that 
it  was  about  as  far  as  she  was  likely  to  get  in  her 
toilet. 

She  discovered  that  heaven  had  its  limitations, 
when  she  saw  the  uselessness  of  praying  for  a  skirt. 

However,  something  had  got  to  be  done.  She 
slipped  into  Henry's  dressing-gown  and  stumbled, 
tripping  over  its  voluminous  folds,  into  the  other 
room. 

Then  she  dived  into  the  Duke's  chest  of  drawers. 

Trousers,  in  the  abstract,  are  the  most  uncom- 
promising things  in  the  world.  With  a  man  inside 

273 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

them  they  lose  something  of  their  innate  offensive- 
ness,  but  held  up  gingerly  toward  the  light,  and 
regarded  as  a  substitute  for  petticoats,  they  appear, 
however  well  groomed  and  creased  they  may  be, 
as  two  legs  and  nothing  else.  And  the  feminine 
mind  demands,  essentially,  something  more.  So 
Molly  put  down  Henry's  gray  flannel  trousers  in 
despair  more  than  once  before  she  realized  that 
there  was  really  no  help  for  it,  and  that  she  had  got 
to  make  up  her  mind  to  the  plunge. 

She  discovered  that  her  husband  was  very  big 
round  the  middle ;  also  that  his  legs  were  too  long. 
But  she  turned  up  the  trousers  and  tied  up  the  waist 
and  regarded  herself  with  complete  disgust. 

She  also  wished  they  wouldn't  flap  against  her 
legs.  It  was  a  perpetual  reminder  that  she  was  not 
decently  clad. 

However,  there  was  the  dressing-gown. 

She  discovered  also  Henry's  sweater,  which  was 
infinitely  more  pleasing,  being  cut  in  a  V-shape  at 
the  neck  and  quite  nicely  decorated  with  the  colors 
of  his  Oxford  college.  She  pulled  it  on  and  tried 
to  shape  it  to  her  waist  with  the  cord  from  the 
Duke's  pajamas.  The  result  was  not  very  good, 
but  the  top  part  was  not  so  unbecoming,  after  all. 

And  then,  thank  heaven,  there  was  always  the 
dressing  gown. 

A  knock  at  the  door  caused  her  to  fly  precipi- 
tately for  this  approximately  feminine  garment,  in 
which  she  enveloped  herself  before  admitting  her 
husband.  Her  hair  she  had  not  had  time  to  arrange. 

However,  it  was  good  hair,  and  long.  .   .   . 
274 


AN    ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

Henry  came  in,  flushed  from  his  exercise,  and 
regarded  his  wife  critically  for  a  moment. 

"I  hope  you  have  not  caught  cold,"  he  said 
politely. 

"I  have  had  a  lovely  bath,"  she  replied,  drawing 
the  dressing-gown  farther  round  those  dreadful  gray 
flannels. 

"I  am  just  about  to  have  a  bath  myself,"  returned 
the  Duke. 

He  collected  his  clothes  as  another  knock  was 
heard  at  the  door. 

"Oh — please!"  gasped  the  Duchess. 

Henry  spoke  through  the  panels. 

"It's  all  right,  Dunn,"  he  said;  "I  will  manage 
for  myself,"  She  heard  the  valet's  steps  as  he  went 
away. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Molly  humbly*. 

"Not  at  all,"  he  answered.  She  went  into  the 
bathroom  and  turned  on  the  water. 

"Do  you  like  it  very  hot?"  she  asked. 

"Please,"  he  answered,  "and  put  the  cold  in  first." 
It  appeared  only  natural  to  him  that  somebody 
should  be  turning  on  his  bath. 

She  obeyed  and  produced  a  clean  towel  from  the 
rack. 

"Confound  it!"  she  heard  him  murmuring. 
"Where's  my  dressing-gown?"  She  realized  that 
she  was  stamping  with  both  feet  on  the  habits  of 
years.  Evidently  he  remembered  that  she  was  wear- 
ing it,  for  he  appeared  in  a  moment  in  a  burberry 
and  bedroom  slippers. 

Sitting  in  the  next  room,  wondering  what  she  was 
275 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

going  to  say  to  him  when  the  time  for  explanations 
arrived,  Molly  heard  her  husband  busily  engaged  in 
the  bath.  After  some  moments  his  voice,  slightly 
muffled  as  he  spoke  through  the  towel  with  which 
he  was  drying  his  head,  came  through  to  her. 

"You  will  find  a  pair  of  gray  flannel  trousers  in 
the  bottom  drawer,"  it  said.  "I  wonder  if  you  would 
mind  throwing  them  in?" 

Molly  hunted  desperately  in  the  drawer,  hoping 
there  would  be  another  pair.  "Can't  you  find 
them?"  she  heard  him  say,  a  little  impatiently,  as 
she  gave  up  the  search.  She  came  to  the  bathroom 
door  and  summoned  up  her  courage. 

"I'm  wearing  them,"  she  said,  with  a  quaver. 

Henry  pulled  the  plug  out  of  the  bath  viciously. 
So  this  was  what  it  meant  to  be  married! 

"The  white  ones  will  do,"  he  said,  without  com- 
ment. For  all  that  he  was  annoyed.  No  one,  he 
thought,  had  a  right  to  come  into  a  man's  life  so 
intimately  as  this.  Besides,  what  about  last  night's 
confession?  Henry,  a  source  of  continual  mystifica- 
tion to  his  friends  and  relations,  disliked  nothing 
more  himself  than  inexplicable  conduct  in  others. 
He  dressed  with  a  growing  feeling  that  heaven  was 
not  taking  him  and  his  creed  seriously. 

Indeed,  nothing  is  calculated  to  make  a  man  look 
more  ridiculous  than  to  be  pursued  by  his  wife.  It 
has  not  even  the  precarious  charm  of  being  illicit. 
Not  that  Henry  would  have  been  in  the  least  thrilled 
if  someone  else's  wife  had  run  away  with  him — it 
would  have  annoyed  him  just  as  much, — but  though 
passionate  liaisons  are  charming  and  natural,  passion- 

276 


AN    ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

ate  marriages  are,  of  course,  farcical.  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  man  writing  verses  to  his  wife,  except 
perhaps  in  Turkey,  where  the  wisdom  of  the  East 
has  not  eliminated  the  stimulating  element  of  com- 
petition? 

As  the  Duke  completed  his  toilet,  he  resolved 
that  he  would  not  disturb  himself  on  his  wife's 
account.  She  had  told  him  what  she  was,  and  there 
was  an  end  of  it.  He  would  demand  no  explanations ; 
it  was  so  much  easier  that  way.  He  would  tell 
Captain  Phillips  to  put  in  at  Marseilles,  or  some 
port  which  they  could  make  within  the  next  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  send  the  girl  back  to  England  with- 
out any  more  trouble. 

Thus,  after  returning  to  the  bedroom,  when  Molly 
started  a  little  nervously  on  her  recantation,  he  cut 
her  short  and  told  her  that  he  did  not  wish  to  hear 
any  more  about  it,  and  that  he  proposed  to  send 
her  home  from  the  nearest  port.  Whereupon  he 
went  on  deck  to  tell  the  Professor. 

As  for  Molly,  it  had  never  entered  her  head  that 
he  would  refuse  to  hear  what  she  had  to  say.  Her 
only  difficulty  had  been  how  best  to  tell  him  that 
she  had  lied.  Now  she  was  just  to  be  returned  with- 
out a  word. 

The  desperate  resolve  had  been  taken,  the  dread- 
ful night  spent,  all  for  nothing.  She  sat  for  some 
time  tragically  staring  at  the  chest  of  drawers. 

The  bottom  drawer,  standing  open,  in  feverish 
disorder  where  she  had  hunted  for  that  second  pair 
of  trousers,  seemed  a  silent  sympathizer  with  her 
forlorn  condition. 

277 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"It  appears,"  Henry  was  saying  to  the  Professor, 
who  had  waked  up,  as  he  always  did,  automatically, 
at  meal-times,  "it  appears  that  my  wife  has  run  away 
with  me." 

Peter  sat  up  in  a  hurry  and  made  certain  of  the 
presence  of  his  silk  handkerchief. 

"How  can  that  be?"  he  asked  stupidly. 

"She  hid  herself  in  one  of  the  lifeboats,"  the 
Duke  went  on.  "The  ship's  course  is  being  altered, 
and  she  will  be  sent  back  from  the  nearest  port." 

Now  Peter  had  heard  nothing  of  Molly's  con- 
fession to  her  husband,  and  he  was  surprised  at 
Henry's  altered  tone. 

"Well,  Henry,"  he  began  slowly,  but  the  other 
cut  him  short. 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you,"  he  said,  "that  my  wife 
is  an  adventuress." 

"Indeed!"  ejaculated  Peter.  "How  do  you 
know  that?" 

"She  told  me  so  herself,"  said  the  Duke. 

"Oh!"  remarked  the  Professor  inadequately. 
Things  were  happening  a  little  too  fast  for  him. 

"At  any  rate,"  he  said  at  last,  "we  may  as  well 
have  the  benefit  of  her  company  while  she  is 
here." 

"Possibly  she  is  now  more  in  your  line  than  mine, 
Peter,"  Henry  returned  dryly.  "Personally,  I  am 
tired  of  being  made  a  fool  of."  In  the  circumstances 
his  dignity  was  slippery  foothold,  so  he  disappeared 
in  the  direction  of  the  little  cabin  which  served  him 
for  a  library  and  gave  himself  up  to  his  work  of 
classification.  But  he  accomplished  very  little.  The 

278 


AN    ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

truth  is  that  he  was  furiously  angry  with  every- 
thing. 

As  for  Peter  Graine,  he  sat  pondering  for  a  long 
time  over  the  tea  which  they  brought  him.  So  the 
Duchess  had  confessed  to  being  an  adventuress? 
That  seemed  odd,  thought  the  Professor,  as  he 
poured  a  liberal  amount  of  milk  into  his  cup — very 
odd.  But  what  a  triumph  for  Octavia  !  Peter  was  a 
little  sorry  for  that,  because,  away  from  Lady  Blake's 
sphere  of  influence,  he  was  a  bit  of  a  renegade.  Such 
a  pretty  woman,  too  .  .  .  very  odd  .  .  .  very 
odd  indeed.  He  nibbled  a  teacake  thoughtfully. 
Of  course  it  had  been  impossible  to  approve  of  the 
marriage,  but  it  was  unpleasant  to  fight  against  a 
woman.  And  this  is  how  it  had  ended !  Well,  that 
was  what  the  world  was  like,  and  Peter  had  his 
reputation  for  cynicism  to  keep  up.  All  the  same, 
he  was  glad  he  had  not  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
Duchess's  destruction  which  she  had  now  brought 
about  of  her  own  free  will.  The  Professor  felt  quite 
glad  about  that.  The  truth  is,  it  was  not  possible 
to  be  as  susceptible  as  the  old  gentleman  was  and 
to  be  a  cynic  as  well. 

And  so  she  had  actually  told  Henry  that  she 
was  a  wicked  woman!  He  stared  pensively  at  the 
tea-leaves.  Really,  it  was  the  oddest  thing  that 
had  ever  happened. 

He  lit  a  cigarette  and  watched  the  smoke  curl 
away  over  his  shoulder.  She  had  confessed  to  her 
husband  and  then  had  run  off  with  him  as  a  stow- 
away. Without  doubt,  thought  Peter,  a  very  curi- 
ous programme.  Meanwhile,  however  wicked  she 

279 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

might  be,  there  was  a  woman  on  board,  all  alone. 
That  was  waste. 

The  old  gentleman  slowly  rose  from  his  chair. 

He  was  not  a  little  surprised  to  see  Molly  coming 
toward  him.  After  spending  some  time  sitting  in 
the  little  cabin  in  silent  despair,  she  had  decided 
that  anything  was  better  than  doing  nothing,  and 
had  'come  out  determined  to  find  Henry  and  make 
him  listen  to  her. 

She  stopped  when  she  saw  Peter,  whom  she  now 
regarded  as  one  of  her  natural  enemies. 

"I  came  to  look  for  my  husband,"  she  said  hesi- 
tatingly. "I  don't  know  if  he  told  you "  She 

broke  off. 

uOh,  yes,"  answered  Peter.  "Everything;  he  al- 
ways does.  We  are  very  old  friends,  you  know." 
He  dragged  another  chair  toward  the  tea-table. 
"Have  you  had  tea?"  he  went  on  cheerfully. 

"I  don't  want  any,"  she  said. 

"Henry,"  continued  the  Professor,  "will  be  on 
deck  again  in  a  moment,  I  dare  say.  Meanwhile, 
you  must  allow  me  to  try  to  entertain  you  myself." 

She  sat  down  in  silence  in  the  proffered  chair. 
After  all,  apparently  he  was  going  to  be  kind  to  her 
— that  was  something. 

Peter  regarded  her  with  great  satisfaction.  Really, 
in  that  sweater,  and  the  dressing-gown,  and  the 
neglige  hair  .  .  .  What  a  fish  Henry  was!  And 
she  was  a  wicked  woman!  Who'd  have  thought  it? 
pondered  the  Professor  as  he  looked  at  her  sorrowful 
brown  eyes. 

Well,  it  was  no  use  treating  an  adventuress  like 
280 


AN    ADVENTURESS    IN    TROUSERS 

a  naughty  child  and  putting  her  in  the  corner.  As 
for  Molly,  she  was  thankful  for  anyone  who  would 
say  a  pleasant  word  to  her,  though,  with  her  thoughts 
on  one  thing  only,  she  found  it  difficult  to  keep  up 
with  Peter's  ripple  of  conversation. 

Henry  did  not  put  in  an  appearance  at  dinner, 
and  Peter  invented  a  headache  for  him  which  did 
not  deceive  the  Duchess  in  the  least.  The  ProfeSsor 
felt  extremely  angry  at  his  friend's  childish  sulks. 
Meanwhile,  of  course,  there  was  the  advantage  of 
being  left  entirely  alone  with  a  very  pretty  woman. 
Indeed,  as  the  evening  wore  on,  the  Professor  alto- 
gether threw  over  his  allegiance  to  Octavia,  and 
would  have  been  perfectly  prepared  to  advise  Henry 
to  cleave  to  his  wife  were  she  the  wickedest  woman 
in  Europe. 

They  sat  together  watching  the  stars  come  out, 
while  Molly,  completely  unconscious  of  anything 
but  her  own  disaster,  heard  as  through  a  fog  the 
continuous  prattle  of  the  Professor.  As  for  Peter, 
stealing  sidelong  glances  at  the  fresh  beauty  of  the 
girl  beside  him,  and  calling  to  mind  all  the  adven- 
turesses he  had  met  in  the  course  of  a  merry  youth, 
the  affair  appeared  to  him  odder  and  odder. 

Toward  half-past  nine  he  had  decided  that  the 
matter  called  for  fuller  investigation.  At  ten  he 
reminded  himself  that  Henry  was  really  a  very 
simple-minded  man.  At  ten-thirty  he  was  convinced 
that  Molly  was  no  more  an  adventuress  than  Octavia 
herself. 

Then  Dunn  appeared  and  piloted  Molly  to  the 
room  which  had  been  prepared  for  her,  where  she 

281 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

found  a  pair  of  pajamas  the  crudeness  of  which 
nearly  made  her  cry,  and  where  she  lay  for  many 
hours  gazing  at  the  low  ceiling,  reflecting  the  curious 
blue  of  the  summer  night,  and  thinking  of  the  triumph 
that  was  in  store  for  Lady  Blake. 

Now,  .although  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  he 
was  apt  to  be  cold  and  calculating,  where  women 
were  concerned  the  Professor  was  a  man  of  violent 
impulse.  Molly's  appearance  at  dinner  in  Mary's 
frock  had  caused  the  first  wavering  in  the  repre- 
hensible old  gentleman's  alliance  with  Octavia — this 
evening  had  entirely  shattered  his  allegiance  to  her. 
Being  more  or  less  honestly  inclined,  so  long  as  he 
was  out  of  range  of  Lady  Blake's  repartee,  he  was 
moved  to  sit  down  and  write  to  her  about  it.  His 
letter  is  of  interest  as  showing  to  what  a  pitiable 
condition  an  old  man  of  sixty  can  be  reduced  by  a 
pretty  girl: 

"My  DEAR  OCTAVIA/'  he  wrote — 

"We  are  on  the  high  seas,  and  an  amazing  thing 
has  happened.  The  Duchess  has  turned  up  as  a 
stowaway.  I  am  sure  that  you  never  thought  of 
that.  Neither  did  I.  It  appears  that  she  has  told 
Henry  that  she  is  an  adventuress,  .and  he  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  her.  Henry  is,  I  fear,  as  we 
have  always  supposed,  an  absolute  idiot.  That  girl 
is  no  more  an  adventuress  than  you  are.  She  wears 
Henry's  dressing-gown  and  his  sweater  and,  my  dear 
Octavia,  trousers  I  How  horrified  you  would  be 
if  you  saw  her!  How  horrified  I  ought  to  be!  But 
I  am  not.  Somehow,  out  here  at  sea  our  objections 

282 


AN   ADVENTURESS   IN   TROUSERS 

to  the  marriage  seem  a  little  trivial.  Of  course,  we 
may  be  right,  but  unpleasant  doubts  come  upon  me 
that  perhaps  some  of  these  things  are  arranged  in 
heaven,  after  all. 

"Henry  proposes  sending  his  wife  back  from 
Marseilles,  but  it  seems  to  me  there  is  something  very 
odd  behind  this  absurd  confession  of  .hers.  I  feel 
it  is  my  duty  to  ferret  it  out.  My  duty,  Octavia. 
There  is  certainly  a  great  deal  more  in  it  than  meets 
the  eye.  Why  do  not  women  wear  sweaters?  I 
had  no  idea  they  were  so  becoming.  I  shall  inquire 
further  into  this  ridiculous  story  the  Duchess  has 
told  Henry.  At  least  the  girl  ought  to  be  given  a 
chance.  I  am  afraid  you  will  think  I  have  changed 
my  views  very  suddenly,  Octavia,  and  indeed  it  is 
quite  possible  that  you  are  perfectly  right  about  the 
affair.  But  I'm  not  quite  satisfied.  What  an  extraor- 
dinary succession  of  events  it  has  been!  Hasn't 
it?  I  wonder  whether  one  is  ever  really  right  in 
trying  to  interfere  with  the  Fates;  policemen  have 
been  run  over,  holding  up  the  traffic,  before  now. 
Rather  a  jolly  simile  of  mine  I 

"Yours  ever, 
"PETER." 

"P.  S. — She  can't  possibly  be  an  adventuress  with 
those  eyes.  Do  you  think  class  distinctions  ought 
to  apply  to  women? 

"P.  P.  S. — Try  one  of  Gerald's  sweaters  on  Mary 
and  see  if  something  can't  be  done  on  those  lines. 
My  love  to  you  all." 

283 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Some  days  later  Octavia  received  this  letter. 
Mary  had  told  her  mother  candidly  of  her  part  in 
the  escapade,  and  Lady  Blake,  though  extremely 
angry  with  her  daughter  for  interfering  with  her  own 
interference  in  other  people's  affairs,  had  discovered 
at  the  same  time  that  Mary  had  quite  definite  ideas 
of  her  own  and  was  not  to  be  bullied.  After  which 
Octavia  accepted  the  position,  felt  many  years  older 
than  she  was,  and  began  seriously  to  look  albout  for 
a  suitable  husband  for  her  daughter.  It  seemed 
that  when  she  was  a  girl  young  ladies  did  not  grow 
up  so  fast.  She  read  Peter's  letter  and  tore  it  into 
little  pieces. 

"Foolish  old  man!"  she  murmured.  "If  Henry 
doesn't  fall  in  love  with  his  wife  soon,  Peter  will." 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

HENRY  ASHAMED   OF    HIMSELF 

MEANWHILE,  the  "Cobra"  steamed  through  calm 
seas  toward  Marseilles.  Henry  was  still  extremely 
angry  at  being  placed  in  such  a  foolish  position  on  his 
own  yacht,  and,  contrary  to  his  usual  method  of  slid- 
ing comfortably  through  all  disasters,  could  think  of 
no  better  way  of  dealing  with  the  position  than  that 
of  ignoring  his  wife  entirely.  For  all  that,  he  was 
unable,  much  to  his  annoyance,  to  sweep  her  out 
of  his  mind  altogether.  That  old  failing  of  his, 
the  soft  heart,  so  incongruous  with  the  selfish  mind, 
which  had  always  led  him  headlong  into  the  indis- 
criminate charity  which  his  sister  had  so  often  cen- 
sured, but  which  he  found  the  quickest  medicine  to 
soothe  its  distress,  now  began  to  torment  him  on  be- 
half of  the  forlorn  figure  of  the  adventuress.  It  was 
quite  in  vain  that  he  told  himself  that  adventuresses 
have  no  right  to  look  forlorn,  especially  when  they 
are  successful.  For  they  do,  and  Molly  was  no  ex- 
ception to  the  rule.  It  is  but  fair  to  the  Duke  to 
remark  that  this  uneasy  feeling  of  his  would  have 
been  just  the  same  had  she  been  as  plain  as  the  hero- 
ine of  a  Cubist's  dream.  That,  indeed,  was  Molly's 
tragedy.  But  Henry's  paramount  desire  was  to  have 
done  with  the  whole  business  and  start  again  in  the 
comfortable  insecurity  of  his  self-made  Paradise. 

285 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

Yet,  though  he  twisted  and  turned  and  buried 
himself  in  his  books,  and  reviewed  in  one  night  the 
peculiarities  of  almost  every  variety  of  toad,  he 
still  found  that  the  figure  of  the  Duchess  usurped 
in  his  mind  the  throne  which  had  -belonged  for  so 
long  to  the  reptiles  of  the  earth.  It  was  as  the  sus- 
picion of  a  blue  haze  on  the  horizon  told  Molly  that 
the  end  of  her  adventure  was  in  sight,  that  the  foolish 
old  gentleman  who  had  been  so  unexpectedly  kind 
to  her,  assuring  himself  that  he  was  a  quite  disin- 
terested knight-errant,  sought  out  Henry  in  his  little 
library,  and,  taking  up  a  position  equivalent  to  the 
hearthrug,  fixed  his  friend  with  a  mysterious  and  por- 
tentous frown. 

"Henry,"  he  said  at  last,  "do  you  seriously  be- 
lieve that  your  wife  is  an  adventuress?" 

"I  do  not  know  that  I  any  longer  seriously  believe 
anything,"  returned  the  Duke. 

"That  is  a  perfectly  childish  remark,"  snapped 
Peter.  "In  fact,"  he  added,  "you  are  behaving  alto- 
gether like  a  child." 

"The  problem  is  not  yours,  Peter;  it  is  mine." 

"And  you  are  facing  it  like  a  man,  I  suppose  ?" 

Henry  answered  nothing. 

"That  girl  is  your  wife,"  went  on  the  Professor. 
"You  cannot  get  over  that." 

"Have  you  not  rather  changed  your  tone,"  asked 
the  Duke,  "since  we  left  Wynninghame  Towers?" 

"Yes,  I  have,"  said  Peter  stoutly.  "And  I  have 
written  a  letter,  which  I  shall  post  at  Marseilles, 
telling  Octavia  that  I  have." 

"Do  you  think  we  are  far  enough  away  to  make 
286 


HENRY   ASHAMED    O*    HIMSELF 

that  safe  ?"  queried  Henry.    "But  I  suppose  repartee 
by  wireless  loses  some  of  its  point." 

"I  admit,"  said  Peter,  "that  I  am  a  coward. 
Where  women  are  concerned  I  become  invertebrate. 
I  am  afraid  of  the  clever  ones  and  a  slave  to  the 
pretty  ones.  But  that  is  a  great  deal  better  than  be- 
ing indifferent  to  everything,  like  you." 

"Well,"  asked  Henry  with  a  sigh,  "what  has 
made  you  change  your  mind?" 

"I  have  not  changed  my  mind,"  he  replied.  "I 
consider  the  marriage  entirely  unsuitable  and  a  great 
calamity;  I  consider  this  stowaway  business  exceed- 
ingly regrettable,  and,  if  it  gets  about,  calculated  to 
make  you  look  perfectly  ludicrous,  Henry.  But 
when  you  tell  me  your  wife  is  an  adventuress  that 
is  absurd." 

"Why  absurd?" 

"Just  because  she  is  nothing  of  the  kind." 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"Because  I  spent  my  younger  days  acquiring  the 
knowledge;  a  vicious  youth  is  not  always  waste  of 
time." 

"And  you  consider  yourself  infallible  in  your 
judgments?" 

The  Professor  gave  a  short  laugh. 

"An  amateur,"  he  said,  "would  find  no  difficulty 
in  this  case." 

"Can  you  explain,  then,  Peter,  why  she  deliber- 
ately confessed  to  me?" 

"I  could,"  he  answered,  "give  several  hypotheses 
which  would  cover  that,  but  I  do  not  propose  to 
do  so.  You  must  ask  her  yourself." 

287 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  Duke  rose,  stretched  his  arms  rather  wearily, 
and  walked  to  the  other  side  of  the  little  cabin. 

"These  things  do  not  interest  me,  Peter,"  he 
said.  "I  wish  to  take  up  my  life  where  I  left  it 
off." 

"You  cannot  correct  mistakes  so  easily,"  replied 
his  friend. 

The  Duke  was  startled.  Was  it  not  the  latter 
half  of  his  disastrous  creed? 

Circumstances  had  routed  him  in  his  crusade. 
Could  it  be  that  the  moment  had  come  for  a  rally? 
He  found  himself  unaccountably  glad  that  perhaps 
Molly  was  not  so  wicked,  after  all.  He  would  try 
once  more  to  pick  up  the  pieces  of  his  crumbling 
campaign. 

"Very  well,  Peter,"  he  said;  "send  her  to  me!" 

The  Professor  stared  at  him. 

"Send  her  to  you?"  he  echoed.  "I'll  do  nothing 
of  the  sort.  Who  are  you  to  grant  an  audience 
to  your  wife?  You  will  go  to  her,  and  you  will 
apologize  humbly  for  ever  believing  a  word  she 
said.  When  you  married,  Henry,  you  stepped  out 
of  the  watertight  compartment  you  have  presumed 
to  call  your  life.  It  is  no  use  supposing  that  you 
can  get  back  again.  You  have  stepped  into  the 
world,  and  you  are  bound  to  suffer,  because  you  don't 
know  your  way  about.  Send  her  to  you,  indeed! 
Do  you  know  what  she'd  do?  She'd  refuse  to 
speak  to  you  again." 

Not  that  Molly,  whose  devotion  was  quite  doglike 
and  undignified,  would  have  done  anything  else  but 
arrive  on  the  instant,  humbly  and  joyfully.  But 

288 


HENRY   ASHAMED    OF   HIMSELF 

the  Duke  felt  a  little  ashamed  of  himself,  and  with 
a  great  effort  endeavored  to  see  the  affair  from  some 
other  angle  than  his  own.  It  struck  him  as  curious 
that  a  marriage  which  he  had  perhaps  considered 
rather  quixotic  and  generous  seemed  to  be  turning 
out  to  be  nothing  of  the  kind.  For  here  was  Peter 
simply  bristling  with  indignation  at  his  behavior, 
and  evidently  convinced  that  he  was  acting  like  a 
scoundrel. 

Henry  was  really  bewildered  at  the  sudden  turn 
of  events.  Peter,  of  all  men,  to  be  telling  him  how 
to  behave  to  a  woman!  Peter,  whose  cynicism  on 
that  subject  had  so  often  roused  his  contempt!  It 
appeared  that  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  saying 
pretty  things  about  women  and  the  world  from  the 
fastness  of  his  watertight  compartment.  But  now 
that  h :  had  ventured  to  come  out,  he  did  not  know 
how  to  behave. 

Well,  if  Henry's  egotism  was  a  little  contemptible 
and  if  his  monastic  existence  had  been  a  mistake,  he 
was,  after  all,  genuinely  anxious  to  correct  his  mis- 
takes as  they  occurred. 

"Very  well,  Peter,"  he  answered,  "I  will  go  to 
her.  But,  first,  I  want  to  know  what  has  made  you 
suddenly  change  your  mind?" 

The  Professor  immediately  produced  his  silk 
handkerchief. 

"I  have,"  he  said,  with  the  most  stupendous  dig- 
nity, "I  have  .  .  er  .  .  been  er  .  .  .  talking  to 
your  wife.  ...  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  her  in 
the  last  twelve  hours.  .  .  .  and  I  have  been  forced 

to  the  conclusion "  He  mopped  his  forehead 

280 


SIMPLE    SOULS. 

violently.     "You  fool,  Henry!"  he  said.     "She  has 
the  most  wonderful  eyes  I  have  ever  seen!" 

The  Duke  could  not  help  smiling.  So  even  the 
altruism  of  Peter  was  not  altogether  unselfish. 

"Has  she?"  he  answered.  "What  color  are 
they?" 

"How  do  you  expect  a  woman  to  remain  faithful 
to  you,"  said  the  Professor,  "if  you  do  not  remember 
the  color  of  her  eyes?" 

Again  Henry  started,  for  he  certainly  had  sup- 
posed that  she  would  remain  faithful  to  him.  Why, 
indeed? 

And  so  the  Duke  went  on  deck  in  search  of  his 
wife,  and  the  Professor  sat  in  the  library  reflecting 
on  his  misspent  and  happy  youth,  when  a  pair  of 
brown  eyes  could  mean  a  great  deal  more  to  him 
than  a  little  sentimental  philanthropy,  and  if  his 
thoughts  could  not  help  leaping  back  once  or  twice 
to  Wynninghame  Towers  and  Octavia's  rage  at  his 
treachery,  he  comforted  himself  with  the  reflection 
that  the  South  Sea  Islands  are  a  very  long  way  from 
Elton  Wick.  Also  he  had  that  very  comfortable 
feeling  inside  which  comes  to  old  men  who,  as  some- 
one has  wittily  put  it,  being  no  longer  able  to  set 
a  bad  example,  have  started  to  give  good  advice. 

The  cliffs  were  already  quite  visible  when  Henry 
found  his  wife  watching  the  little  stretch  of  blue 
waters  that  represented  the  limit  of  time  that  was 
left  for  her  to  drag  her  Romance  out  of  the  ashes. 

Ten  minutes  later  she  was  telling  him  the  truth 
as  he  sat  by  her  side,  looking  gravely  down  at  his 
toes. 

290 


HENRY    ASHAMED    OF    HIMSELF 

"And  so,"  he  said  at  last,  "it  was  because  you 
thought  you  had  disgraced  me?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered. 

"I  never  saw  it  in  that  light,"  he  said.  "It  is 
for  Lady  Helen  to  be  ashamed.  But  that,"  he 
added,  "is  of  course  incredible." 

So  he  believed  her.  What  would  he  do  now? 
Marseilles  was  very  close. 

"I  feel  I  owe  you  an  apology,"  he  was  saying; 
"an  apology  for  many  things :  for  Lady  Helen  and 
Octavia  and  for  Wynninghame  Towers.  And  there 
is  one  thing  more  for  which  I  owe  you  an  apology." 

"What  is  that?"  she  asked. 

"It  is,"  he  said  slowly,  "because  I  do  not  love 
you,  and  you  were  made  to  be  loved." 

He  looked  across  the  water  a  little  wistfully. 
All  in  a  second  he  seemed  to  her  to  have  become  her 
dream-monger  again. 

"Must  I  go  back?"  she  whispered. 

He  did  not  answer  her.  When  he  spoke  it  was 
almost  to  himself. 

"My  God!"  he  said,  all  of  a  sudden.  "What 
have  I  done?"  The  full  extent  of  her  devotion  to 
him  he  now  realized  for  the  first  time.  "I  have 
promised  everything,  and  I  have  nothing  to  give !" 

He  did  not  know  that  she  had  heard  him  until 
he  heard  her  murmur  an  answer. 

"You  promised  nothing,"  she  said. 

But  he  did  not  heed  her.  He  saw  that  she  had 
suffered  for  him  and  he  felt  degraded.  To  him  the 
burden  had  seemed  to  belong,  but  she  had  carried  it. 
He  heard  her  whispering  again. 

291 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

"Must  I  go  back?"  she  said. 

Still,  he  thought,  she  was  ready  to  follow  him 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  He  had  no  right  to  refuse 
her.  He  had  no  right  not  to  want  her.  A  turmoil 
of  desire  to  atone  swept  over  him.  Once  let  loose 
from  his  wonted  indifference  to  things,  he  lost  his 
balance  and  made  mountains  out  of  mud  pies.  He 
saw  her  as  a  Joan  of  Arc  crucified  on  the  ruins  of 
his  crusade.  He  cursed  himself  because  he  did  not 
know  how  to  start  loving  her.  A  mental  vision  of 
her  night  in  the  lifeboat  set  the  seal  on  his  abject 
view  of  himself.  Naturally,  since  his  mind  was  oc- 
cupied in  vividly  distorting  comedy  into  tragedy,  his 
words  were  banal. 

"We  shall  have  to  buy  clothes,"  he  said. 

And  so  the  Duchess  realized  that  she  was,  after 
all,  to  have  the  chance  for  which  she  had  prayed, 
for  surely  the  next  best  thing  to  a  country  cottage 
is  a  desert  island.  Being  a  girl  who  never  forgot 
her  friends,  she  sent  a  picture-postcard  to  Mary 
from  Marseilles,  bearing  this  legend : 

"I  am  going  all  the  way  to  look  for  the  Golden 
Toad.  I  believe  now  that  we  shall  find  it. 

"MOLLY." 

The  romantic  Mary,  who  showed  the  postcard 
to  her  mother  as  a  matter  of  course,  did  not  trouble 
to  explain  that  the  Golden  Toad  in  this  case  had 
nothing  to  do  with  Uncle  Henry's  illusions.  As  for 
Octavia,  as  a  Christian  she  could  not  hope  that  the 
ship  would  founder  with  all  hands,  but  as  a  member 

292 


HENRY   ASHAMED    OF    HIMSELF 

of  the  Church  of  England  she  had  a  perfect  right 
to  trust  that  a  "judgment"  would  descend  upon 
the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame,  and  a  minor  judgment 
upon  the  Professor,  whom  she  liked  and  whose  weak- 
nesses she  knew. 

Meanwhile,  a  small  boat  shot  away  from  the 
yacht's  side  and  bobbed  its  way  toward  the  harbor. 
In  it  sat  Peter  and  the  Duke,  who  were  going  shop- 
ping. They  were  only  going  to  buy  enough  ward- 
robe to  enable  Molly  to  complete  her  purchases  her- 
self, and  Peter  was  quite  capable  of  buying  a  possible 
coat  and  skirt  and  not  making  an  utter  fool  of  him- 
self over  a  hat. 

While  the  boat  twinkled  in  the  sun  and  grew 
smaller  and  smaller  until  it  disappeared  amongst  the 
shipping,  Molly  sat  on  the  upper  deck  following  it 
with  dancing  eyes. 

Yes,  Master  Man  of  the  World,  it  is  going  to  be 
another  of  those  infernal  love  stories,  after  all,  and 
if  you  did  not  guess  that  from  their  first  tea-party 
at  the  Zoo,  you  ought  never  to  have  been  trusted 
with  a  novel  at  all,  and  it  serves  you  right. 

All  the  same,  Fate  had  one  more  card  to  play 
before  the  Pioneer  Duchess  was  able  to  drag  from 
behind  those  kind  but  cold  gray  eyes  the  treasure 
which  she  knew  lay  hidden  there. 


293 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

TREASURE   ISLAND 

TRUE  to  her  word,  Molly  did  not,  as  the  "Cobra" 
ploughed  through  the  desert  of  waters,  and  as  the 
sun  grew  hotter  every  day,  intrude  her  love  upon 
her  husband.  Rather,  she  sought  the  society  of 
Peter,  who  amused  her  by  telling  her  the  adventures 
of  his  youth,  a  history  which  he  regarded  with  grav- 
ity and  pride.  There  is  no  place  where  nothing 
happens  so  regularly  as  on  board  ship,  and  the  single 
adventure,  as  far  as  the  Duchess  was  concerned, 
was  a  sudden  gale,  which  she  thought  heralded  the 
end  of  the  world,  but  which  Captain  Phillips  called 
a  capful  of  wind.  Molly  was  as  happy  as  she  had 
ever  been  during  the  long  hot  days,  listening  to  the 
Professor's  stories  or  watching  Henry  take  his  after- 
noon's exercise  round  the  yacht's  decks.  At  night, 
when  it  seemed  still  hotter  and  when  time  stood 
still,  it  must  be  confessed  that  she  sometimes  lay 
awake  thinking  about  her  husband  and  praying  for 
the  miracle  which  never  happened.  For  the  Duke, 
though  he  did  not  forget  the  sudden  revelation  of  her 
suffering  on  his  behalf,  and  though  he  was  kindness 
and  charm  itself  whenever  he  and  his  wife  were 
together,  yet  made  no  effort  to  meet  his  fate  half 
way. 

So  the  yacht  slipped  quietly  through  the  water 
until  one  morning  they  woke  to  find  the  ship  at 

294 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

anchor  and  the  island  of  Henry's  dream,  looking  like 
the  Prince's  Garden  in  the  pantomime,  a  few  hundred 
yards  away.  It  was  a  great  deal  bigger  than  Molly 
had  imagined  it,  and  she  was  quite  astonished  when 
Peter  explained  that  it  would  take  at  least  six  days 
to  walk  round  its  coasts. 

What  astonished  her  still  more  was  the  fact  that 
such  a  beautiful  piece  of  real  estate  was  entirely 
uninhabited,  while  Ball  Street  contained  fifty  families 
on  one  side  alone.  This  surprising  result  of  Civiliza- 
tion and  Progress  she  confided  to  Peter,  who  as- 
sured her  that  her  ideas  on  the  subject  were  absurd) 
but  who  was  quite  unable  to  explain  why. 

Meanwhile,  preparations  were  going  forward  for 
the  last  phase  in  the  expedition  in  search  of  the 
Golden  Toad,  and  finally  a  boat  left  the  ship's  side, 
and,  heavily  burdened,  proceeded  slowly  toward  the 
shore. 

In  the  bows  sat  Henry,  nursing  a  little  zinc  cage 
and  thinking  of  nothing  at  all  but  frogs  and  froggy 
matters.  Near  him  was  Dunn,  carrying  a  heap  of 
mosquito  nets  in  his  arms,  like  a  baby.  Peter  was 
in  the  stern;  his  whole  impedimenta  consisted  of 
a  cigar  which  he  carried  in  his  mouth,  and  the  fumes 
of  which  he  contended  were  proof  against  whole 
armies  of  mosquitoes.  The  Duchess  sat  by  his  side. 
Two  members  of  the  crew,  besides  the  rowers,  were 
also  included  in  the  landing-party,  their  duty  being 
to  carry  the  little  tents  and  odds  and  ends  which 
were  to  form  their  quarters  during  the  exploration. 

"The  actual  spot  mentioned  by  Cook,  where  he 
discovered  the  toad,"  said  Henry,  after  the  landing 

295 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

had  been  made  and  they  were  walking  up  the  beach, 
"is  rather  hard  to  trace." 

"It  would  be,"  rejoined  Peter,  "bearing  in  mind 
the  man's  unfortunate  failing." 

"You  will  never  find  anything,  Peter,"  answered 
the  Duke,  "if  you  approach  it  in  that  way." 

"I  am  here,"  said  the  Professor,  "for  my  health; 
I  am  not  going  to  injure  it  by  overworking  my 
imagination." 

"No,"  murmured  Henry;  "I  should  be  very  care- 
ful of  your  imagination." 

Thus  they  fell  to  wrangling  as  to  whether  Peter 
actually  possessed  any  imagination  at  all,  which  led 
in  a  very  short  while  to  a  discussion  on  that  social 
high  explosive,  his  sense  of  humor.  It  is  a  curious 
trait  in  human  beings  that  they  would  far  rather 
be  accused  of  lacking  a  moral  sense  than  of  being 
unable  to  see  a  joke.  Myself,  I  confess  I  would 
rather  share  a  maisonette  with  Chicot  than  with 
Martin  Luther.  Still  more  would  I  prefer  to  see 
them  share  one  together. 

Thus  Henry  and  Peter  wrangled  and  Molly  mar- 
velled at  her  surroundings.  This  South  Sea  para- 
dise, the  defects  of  which,  in  the  shape  of  insects, 
vapors,  foul  smells  and  general  rankness,  never 
really  let  themselves  go  until  the  evening,  seemed 
to  her  the  nearest  possible  approach  to  the  Garden 
of  Eden.  If  one  regards  the  world  from  the  angle 
of  a  desert  island,  what  better  point  of  view  is  avail- 
able so  long  as  we  remain  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels?  If,  I  repeat,  one  has  this  rare  opportunity, 
many  things  which  constant  use  has  rendered  as 

296 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

commonplace  as  the  miracle  of  life  itself  will  ap- 
pear in  a  very  different  light.  To  Molly,  for  in- 
stance, the  fact  that  the  little  party  of  six  were  the 
only  human  beings  in  this  unemployed  Paradise  was 
matter  of  wonder  and  infinite  speculation.  She  was 
actually  living  through  the  most  outlandish  scenes 
of  those  "silly  books"  which  once  upon  a  time  she 
had  been  accustomed  to  invoke,  lest  Ball  Street  break 
her  heart.  For  people's  hearts  do  break,  though  the 
whole  College  of  Surgeons  deny  it;  and  though 
Cupid  is  often  arraigned  on  the  charge,  what  breaks 
them  could  best  be  told  by  the  grim  and  silent  cities. 

So  the  Duchess,  casting  her  eye  over  the  total 
population  of  Toad  Island,  marvelled  that  in  Bell 
Street,  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  Ball  Street,  there 
lived  families  whose  very  faces  she  did  not  know. 
It  is  really  a  very  curious  thing  that  though  time 
and  space  are  being  brought  to  heel  more  thoroughly 
every  century,  our  neighbors  remain  as  complete  a 
mystery  as  Adam,  until  the  unfortunate  fruit  com- 
bine, was  to  Eve.  Molly  had  the  unhappy  type  of 
mind,  commoner  among  women  than  among  men, 
which  is  always  endeavoring  to  piece  life  together 
like  a  puzzle  and  make  it  a  whole,  regardless  of  the 
feet  that  if  the  world  is  a  puzzle  it  has  several  of  the 
pieces  missing,  lost  perhaps  by  that  same  Adam  and 
Eve,  and  never  recovered. 

So  she  puzzled  about  why  men  lived  in  cities, 
where  there  were  no  bright  colors,  and  why  every- 
body lived  according  to  somebody  else's  rules,  so 
that  impoverished  clerks  in  dingy  suburbs,  who  were 
only  really  alive  when  they  were  asleep  and  dream- 

297 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

ing,  wasted  valuable  time  every  night  putting  their 
trousers  under  the  mattress,  in  order  that  there  might 
be  a  perceptible  crease  down  the  centre  in  the  City 
next  day.  And  why  her  own  mother  thought  God 
was  a  spiteful  policeman  with  unlimited  powers, 
whereas  really  He  was  a  bird  of  paradise  high  up 
in  a  tropical  tree.  And  whether  the  grace  of  a  lovely 
woman  was  as  revolting  as  the  beauty  of  a  snake 
gliding  away  to  some  mysterious  homestead  under 
the  dark  foliage.  And,  if  so,  why  they  were  in  the 
world  at  all.  And  why,  under  the  sea,  which  is 
always  rippling  with  laughter  at  the  jokes  cracked  by 
the  sun,  there  lay  wrecks  and  bones  and  disasters. 

And  why  Henry  did  not  love  her. 

They  had  their  lunch  in  a  little  clearing  where 
giant  trees  looked  down  on  them,  peering,  as  it  were, 
over  one  another's  shoulders,  like  a  curious  crowd 
in  a  London  street.  It  awed  Molly,  who,  like  most 
sensitive  people,  felt  easily  dwarfed.  She  remem- 
bered her  last  picnic,  a  pilgrimage  to  that  little 
mountainous  hillock  on  Hampstead  Heath  where 
seven  moribund  trees  stand  stark  against  the  sky, 
mutely  begging  some  charitable  person  to  cut  them 
down  before  they  suffer  the  indignity  of  being  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  Greater  London.  It  had  been 
a  very  jolly  picnic,  where  she  had  lain  under  a  bush 
and  devoured  at  least  half  of  a  silly  book.  Now  she 
was  her  own  heroine — a  much  less  restful  occupation. 

After  lunch  they  left  the  baggage  men  and  Dunn 
in  the  clearing,  where  Peter  proposed  that  they 
should  spend  the  night,  and  with  Henry's  enthusiasm 
no  whit  abated  by  the  long  morning's  walk,  set  out 

298 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

for  the  spot  where  he  conjectured  that  Cook  had  seen 
the  toad.  Molly  found  herself  getting  very  tired 
as  she  tried  to  keep  up  with  Henry  and  the  Pro- 
fessor, who  were  each  so  set  on  proving  the  other 
a  fool  that  they  never  noticed  either  the  pace  at 
which  they  were  going  or  the  distance  which  they 
were  covering.  They  talked  volubly  and  without  ceas- 
ing about  reptiles,  and  used  long  and  dignified  Latin 
names  which  made  the  Duchess  feel  as  if  she  were 
an  eavesdropper,  though  in  reality  they  were  only 
speaking  of  the  habits  of  the  common  earthworm 
and  might  as  well  have  used  his  English  alias.  For 
though  scientists  and  lawyers  like  their  languages 
dead  (on* the  theory,  perhaps,  that  dead  men  tell  no 
tales) ,  few  of  us,  except  very  simple  souls  like  Molly, 
are  taken  in  any  more  than  when  we  hear  our  fash- 
ionable friends  speaking  French  with  a  county  fam- 
ily accent.  But  the  Duchess,  who  was  always  pre- 
pared to  feel  small  at  a  moment's  notice,  fell  behind 
when,  the  argument  becoming  fiercer,  the  Latin  grew 
more  virulent,  in  sympathy. 

So  it  happened  that  she  wandered  along  after 
them,  soon  lost  in  her  own  thoughts,  which  were 
highly  uninteresting  except  to  herself.  For  they 
were  of  Henry  all  the  time:  Henry  in  his  study, 
Henry  in  a  cottage  drawing-room,  with  her  pouring 
out  tea  for  him,  Henry  in  a  kitchen  garden  holding 
a  basket,  while  she  delved  amongst  the  cabbages, 
Henry  reading,  Henry  playing,  Henry  glad,  and 
Henry  gloomy;  till  at  last  she  looked  up  and  dis- 
covered that  there  was  no  Henry  walking  ahead  of 
her  at  all  I 

299 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

The  fact  was  that  as  their  argument  got  hotter 
and  hotter,  so  the  Professor  and  his  friend  had 
walked  quicker  and  quicker,  and  Molly,  since  wool- 
gathering is  always  a  slow  business,  was  soon  left 
far  behind.  Now  she  ran  forward  hastily,  thinking 
that  they  could  not  be  very  far  ahead.  But  the 
path  was  treacherous  and  devious,  and  before  very 
long  the  Duchess  was  a  great  deal  farther  away  from 
her  companions  than  she  had  been  at  the  moment 
when  she  had  discovered  their  absence. 

She  wandered  on  and  on,  expecting  every  minute 
to  come  upon  them  round  some  corner  or  beyond 
the  next  clump  of  trees,  until  at  last,  looking  up, 
and  seeing  that  the  patches  of  light  that  filtered 
down  through  the  roof  of  foliage  were  already 
failing,  she  realized  that  she  was  lost,  and  stood 
still  with  a  vague  terror  beginning  to  clutch  at 
her,  as  if  she  were  descending  inch  by  inch  into  icy 
water. 

She  called  out  for  Henry,  and  was  answered  by 
such  a,  tremendous  silence  that  she  was  somehow 
afraid  to  call  again.  She  knew  now  that  she  had 
not  been  following  them,  after  all,  and,  knowing 
that  she  must  have  covered  several  miles,  she  real- 
ized that  they  were  far  away  from  her.  She  sat 
down  suddenly  on  the  ground  and  tried  to  reason  out 
what  was  the  best  thing  for  her  to  do.  But  all  she 
found  herself  able  to  realize  was  the  vast  silence  of 
the  wilderness  of  woods  that  surrounded  her.  It 
seemed  to  crush  all  attempts  at  escape. 

And  as  she  sat,  there  crossed  her  line  of  vision, 
progressing  with  ungainly  flops  across  the  little  patch 

300 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

of  rank  weed  and  grass,  a  large  toad  with  an  irregu- 
lar line  of  pure  gold  down  the  centre  of  his  glistening 
back;  an  aristocratic  old  gentleman  whose  paunch 
alone  entitled  him  to  a  place  in  the  most  dignified 
circles. 

Molly  watched  him  tumble  his  way  across  the 
little  space  until  he  was  almost  out  of  sight  behind 
the  cool  shelter  of  some  enormous  leaves,  before 
she  realized  that  he  was  the  Golden  Toad  in  person. 
It  was  in  search  of  him  that  the  expedition  had  been 
made — she  must  capture  him,  at  all  costs. 

She  went  quickly  to  the  spot  where  she  had  seen 
him  disappear,  and  began  delicately  to  poke  about 
with  a  twig  among  the  leaves.  She  had  never  been 
on  intimate  terms  with  a  toad,  and  she  was  shy. 
Near  by  was  a  great  stone  with  a  long  ragged  crevice 
creeping  up  into  its  centre  from  the  ground.  Molly 
realized  from  the  rich  moss  which  clung  to  the  little 
rock  how  damp  her  surroundings  were  going  to  be 
as  soon  as  the  sun  went  off  duty.  Into  this  crevice 
she  fancied  that  the  toad  must  have  gone,  and  she 
tentatively  poked  her  stick  into  the  opening.  But 
as  nothing  happened,  and  as  she  conceived  it  her 
duty  to  capture  the  monster  for  Henry,  however  un- 
pleasant the  operation,  she  gave  a  little  shudder  and 
plunged  her  hand  into  the  aperture. 

There  was  a  sharp  wrench,  and  Molly  felt  an  in- 
tolerable pain  in  her  wrist.  She  had  caught  it  in  the 
crevice,  as  in  a  vise,  and  in  the  instantaneous  effort 
to  withdraw  her  hand  had  sprained  the  wrist  badly. 
She  felt  momentarily  faint,  and  leaned  against  the 

301 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

little  rock  for  some  seconds,  holding  the  injured 
hand  to  her  heart. 

Yet,  for  a  few  minutes,  the  Duchess  still  refused 
to  give  up  the  search  for  Henry's  toad.  It  was  only 
when  she  suddenly  discovered  that  she  could  no 
longer  use  her  wrist  at  all,  that  it  was  already  almost 
twice  its  right  size,  and  that  her  whole  forearm  was 
on  fire,  that  she  gave  up  the  quest  and  returned  into 
the  little  clearing.  The  sun  was  already  down,  and 
the  whole  air  was  filled  with  the  buzz  of  a  million 
flies  and  mosquitoes.  She  sat  down  with  her  back 
against  a  tree  and  tried  with  her  one  hand  to  ward 
off  the  attack  of  these  harpies.  But  her  soft  white 
skin  and  her  inadequate  defenses  were  too  great  a 
temptation,  and  in  a  few  minutes  she  was  suffering 
the  torments  of  the  damned. 

She  rose  and  paced  to  and  fro,  a  cloud  of  satel- 
lites screaming  round  her  head.  The  pain  in  her 
wrist,  too,  was  growing  intolerable,  and  the  tears 
were  soon  running  down  her  cheeks  from  suffering 
and  despair 

But  one  cannot  cry  forever,  and  one  cannot  walk 
forever,  and  at  last,  quite  exhausted,  the  unfortunate 
Duchess  literally  fell  in  her  tracks  and  lay  on  the  soft 
damp  ground,  her  face  buried  in  her  arms.  And  when 
the  pain  in  her  wrist  grew  worse  and  the  whole  world 
seemed  dancing  and  buzzing  and  biting,  as  if  every 
spiteful  creature  thereon  had  found  her  defenseless 
and  was  determined  to  add  his  mite  to  her  suffering, 
she  became  delirious  and  called  again  and  again  for 
Henry  and  Samuel  Shine  (who  was  comfortably 
drunk  at  the  moment  in  a  tavern  in  the  Vauxhall 

302 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

Bridge  Road) ,  and  even  for  Mary, whom  she  remem- 
bered vaguely  as  one  of  the  figures  in  her  Romance 
who  had  been  kindly  disposed  toward  her.  .  .  . 
But  at  last  she  called  no  more,  and  lay  quite  still.  .  .  . 

Half  a  mile  away,  though  by  the  twisting  path 
the  distance  was  three  times  as  great,  Henry  and  the 
Professor  halted  and  looked  round  for  Molly.  They 
shouted  several  times  with  their  combined  lung- 
power,  but  as  only  the  vibrant  note  of  hungry 
mosquitoes  answered  them,  they  turned  and  stared 
at  each  other  in  dismay. 

"I  thought,"  said  the  Duke  weakly,  "that  she  was 
only  just  behind  us." 

"So  did  I,"  answered  the  Professor,  mopping 
his  brow.  "Damn  these  mosquitoes  1"  he  added. 
"Why  didn't  we  bring  the  nets?" 

"I  had  no  idea,"  said  Henry,  "we  should  come 
so  far  or  be  out  so  late;  perhaps  she  has  gone 
back." 

He  turned  quickly  and  retraced  his  steps ;  a  grow- 
ing fear  that  Molly  had  met  with  some  disaster  was 
beginning  to  master  him.  He  stopped  suddenly. 

"Peter,"  he  said,  "supposing  she  has  lost  her- 
self." 

"We  shall  find  her,"  returned  the  old  man. 
"There  is  no  reason  why  she  should  come  to  any 
harm."  But  he  spoke  without  conviction. 

They  shouted  again,  without  response. 

"We  were  fools  to  let  her  come,"  said  Henry. 

They  shouted  again,  without  response. 

"There  are  no  wild  beasts  on  the  island,"  mur- 
mured the  Professor. 

303 


"She  will  be  frightened  out  of  her  life,"  said  his 
companion.  He  bit  his  lip  as  he  thought  of  her 
spending  the.  night  in  the  woods. 

Peter  flicked  violently  at  the  mosquitoes  with  his 
silk  handkerchief. 

"We  had  better  go  back  to  the  camp,"  he  said, 
"and  form  a  search-party." 

After  this  they  walked  on  for  some  time  in  silence 
save  for  an  occasional  "Damn !"  from  the  Professor 
as  some  insect  more  nimble  than  his  fellows  evaded 
the  old  gentleman's  defenses.  But  they  had  not  gone 
very  far  before  Henry  stopped  again. 

"Peter,"  he  said,  "I  can't  wait.  You  must  go 
back  and  get  the  search-party;  I  am  going  to  look 
for  her  myself." 

"Don't  be  ridiculous,"  grunted  the  Professor. 
"You  will  only  lose  yourself.  What  is  the  use  of 
that?" 

"I  tell  you  I'm  going,"  snapped  the  Duke,  a  great 
deal  more  peremptorily  than  Peter's  mild  expostula- 
tion had  warranted,  and  the  older  man,  who  had 
been  consulting  his  watch,  suddenly  forgot  to  put 
it  back  into  his  pocket  and  stared  at  Henry  in  sur- 
prise. But  as  his  eyes  met  those  of  his  friend  his 
surprise  gave  way  to  utter  astonishment,  for  Henry, 
though  he  returned  the  Professor's  stare  quite 
frankly,  was  blushing  like  a  boy  at  his  first  party. 

Peter,  after  his  first  astonishment,  was  wise  enough 
to  say  nothing,  and  continued  on  his  way  back  to  the 
camp,  where  he  remarked,  dryly  enough,  that  the 
Duke  and  his  wife  were  lost,  and  that  it  was  the  un- 
comfortable fate  of  everybody  to  turn  out  and  look 

304 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

for  them,  which,  in  a  silence  far  too  vivid  to  stand 
the  test  of  description  in  print,  they  did. 

But  what  had  happened  to  Henry,  and  why  should 
a  man  of  mature  age,  who  had  never  blushed  in  his 
life,  suddenly  develop  the  uncomfortable  embarrass- 
ments of  an  ingenue?  All  I  can  tell  you  is  that 
pity  (as  Henry  himself  would  have  put  it)  is  often 
the  amoeba  of  love,  and  the  Duke,  making  the  sud- 
den discovery  that  in  his  case  the  process  of  evolution 
was  complete,  had  been  altogether  overwhelmed  and 
covered  with  confusion. 

As  he  crashed  through  the  undergrowth,  frighten- 
ing away  in  his  violence  even  the  hungriest  of  mos- 
quitoes, he  threw  off  the  whole  of  his  creed,  which 
had  suddenly  appeared  to  him  so  trivial,  and  deter- 
mined to  become  the  perfect  lover.  What  is  a  for- 
mula to  do  when  it  is  confronted  by  a  passion?  Flee 
precipitately,  of  course,  and  never  lift  its  head  again, 
till  old  age  or  disappointment  or  dyspepsia  lets  down 
the  drawbridge  and  opens  the  gates  to  it  once  more. 

Henry's  conversion  had  not,  in  reality,  been  so 
quick  as  it  sounds.  Ever  since  the  sudden  vision  of 
his  own  egotism  had  torn  from  him  the  tragic  cry, 
"I  have  promised  everything,  and  I  have  nothing 
to  give,"  he  had,  in  his  slow,  deliberate  way,  been 
working  back  through  the  events  of  his  short  married 
life  and  right  through  his  bachelor  existence  to  the 
foundations  of  his  precious  and  momentous  creed. 
Year  after  year,  day  after  day,  hour  after  hour  of 
useless  and  lonely  selfishness,  rose  before  his  brain 
as  the  picture  of  his  life.  That,  at  least,  was  how 
he  saw  it,  for  your  reformed  egoist  becomes  the 

305 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

most  violent  of  reactionaries.  He  did  not  remember 
that  he  had  always  been  kind,  seldom  intolerant, 
never  vicious.  He  only  saw  himself  as  a  hard  and 
silent  figure  in  a  large,  inhuman  house,  and,  what  is 
worse,  he  felt  that  he  was  still  hardening.  And  thus, 
while  he  distorted  to  himself  his  faults  and  dismissed 
from  the  audience  altogether  his  poor  little  virtues, 
he  found  himself  stealing  glances  at  Molly  in  the 
radiance  of  her  happiness  during  the  voyage,  and 
longing  for  a  little  of  her  vitality  and  humanity  and 
sympathy.  So  that  it  was  not  long  before  he  was 
wondering  whether  he  was  worthy  of  her  society. 
And  that,  as  all  lovers  know,  is  the  beginning  of  the 
end.  Yet  he  had  not  approached  her.  Indeed,  now 
that  she  appeared  his  superior,  Henry  was  shy  of  his 
wife.  This  was  his  state  of  mind  when  the  landing 
had  been  made,  and  the  imminence  of  the  climax  of 
the  expedition  had  temporarily  driven  it  out  of  his 
head,  in  the  new  enthusiasm  for  the  Golden  Toad. 
It  was  only  when  the  disaster  narrated  in  this  chap- 
ter occurred  that  the  Duke  discovered  that  he  was 
hopelessly  and  utterly  in  love.  So  now  you  may  pic- 
ture him,  crashing  through  the  woods,  calling  her 
name  at  intervals,  listening  for  a  moment  and  then 
pressing  on,  leaving  the  last  remnants  of  his  theories 
and  philosophies  behind  him  at  every  step,  and  every 
moment  becoming,  more  and  more,  that  primitive 
and  delightful  creation — a  man  In  love  with  a  maid. 

And  of  course  Providence,  which,  it  is  our  duty  to 
believe,  had  really  been  looking  after  Molly  all  the 
time,  arranged  that  he  should  find  her. 

She  was  lying  where  we  last  left  her;  her  head 
306 


TREASURE    ISLAND 

lay  on  her  uninjured  arm,  and  her  face  was  the  face 
of  one  who  had  not  a  trouble  in  the  world.  For 
someone  who  looks  after  these  things  had  noticed 
her  distress,  and  had  bade  Morpheus  go  and  attend 
to  her  case. 

She  woke  in  Henry's  arms  and  dreamed  that  there 
were  tears  in  his  eyes.  Unmanly  fellow!  What 
has  a  Peer  at  thirty-eight  to  do  with  weeping?  Yet 
Molly  saw  in  his  tears  the  hidden  treasure  she  had 
been  looking  for  behind  those  kind  gray  eyes.  Well, 
well,  she  may  have  been  right.  If  laughter  is  a  gift, 
why  not  tears  ? 

But  Henry's  wife  had  something  of  the  spirit  of 
the  sentinel  of  Pompeii,  so  that  her  first  words  were 
of  the  absurd  Toad,  which,  she  thought,  lay  nearest 
to  Henry's  heart. 

"The  Toad!"  she  whispered.    "I  saw  it!" 

"Damn  the  Toad!"  returned  Henry,  and  she  was 
well  pleased  to  leave  it  at  that  and  to  receive  the 
little  oath  on  her  lips. 

"Oh,  my  little  one — my  little  one !"  he  said,  and 
the  Duchess  knew  that  her  cottage  was  no  longer  in 
the  air. 

Pah !    The  sentiment  of  it  I 

"My  darling!"  she  began,  and  her  arms  stole 
round  his  neck.  "My  darling  .  .  ." 

No.  I  will  not  write  it.  We  have  all  played  the 
scene,  every  one  of  us,  and  we  know  just  how  it 
goes.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  old  Uncle  George, 
who  sits  such  an  unconscionable  time  behind  his 
paper  at  the  Athenaeum,  is  as  well  able  to  fill  in  the 

307 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

conversation  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  as  you  or  I ; 
but  he  is,  and  so  is  poor  old  Aunt  Ellen,  who  is  full 
of  good  works,  and  may  leave  us  her  four  hundred 
a  year  any  day  now.  Love-making  is  the  only  genu- 
ine antique  left  to  us.  I  am  not  going  to  profane  it 
by  putting  it  in  the  catalogue  with  the  others. 
I  will  be  an  eavesdropper  at  anything  but  that. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

AN  AMATEUR   LOVER 

BACK  to  Wynninghame  House  and  Piccadilly,  with 
an  October  wind  hurtling  down  to  Leicester  Square 
from  Hyde  Park  and  mouse-faced  women  and 
pinched  men  contracting  their  winter  chills  and  bad 
tempers;  with  motor  omnibuses,  each  a  complete  cos- 
mos in  itself,  clattering  and  screeching  their  way 
from  Mayfair  to  the  slums,  completely  indifferent  to 
each,  as  is  consonant  with  the  dignity  of  such  colossi; 
with  ladies  of  virtue  and  ladies  of  vanity  rubbing 
shoulders;  with  gentlemen  in  white  spats  with  a  li- 
brary of  bills,  and  others  in  shabby  coats  whose 
credit  is  everywhere  unchallenged;  artists  whose 
reputation  depends  upon  their  ugliness,  and  beggars 
whose  income  rests  on  their  capacity  for  woes  rather 
than  the  value  of  the  matches  they  never  sell;  hum- 
bug and  high  brow  (often  arm  in  arm)  on  the  sunny 
side,  with  impatient  Merit  scowling  along  on  the 
other — how  a  modern  Juvenal  would  revel  in  this 
Suburr'a  I  What  a  wonderful  six-shillings'  worth 
would  fce  the  reflections  on  modern  Piccadilly  of 
Swift,  the  gloomy  Dean !  But  though  the  nakedness 
of  the  land  was  thus  exposed  (as,  indeed,  it  is  ex- 
posed every  day  of  the  year  for  me  and  you  to  see) , 
the  Duchess  of  Wynninghame,  who  was  walking  up 
toward  Wynninghame  House  by  the  side  of  her  lord 
and  master,  on  the  sunny  side,  of  course,  and  who 

309 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

had  been  the  author  of  those  sentimental  reflections 
on  Desert  Islands  which  we  have  just  heard,  under- 
stood perfectly  well  why  men  lived  in  cities,  and  why 
they  were  the  most  fascinating  places  in  the  world. 
Which  only  shows  that  philosophy  is  entirely  gov- 
erned by  environment.  And  if  she  mentioned  to  him 
the  discovery  of  the  Golden  Toad,  she  found  him  un- 
interested, and  dropped  the  subject  to  make  room 
for  another  and  a  more  absorbing. 

As  for  Henry,  a  light  is  thrown  on  his  condition 
by  the  remarks  of  Octavia,  who  was  standing  on  the 
steps  of  Wynninghame  House,  talking  to  the  Pro- 
fessor. 

"How  disgusting  it  is,"  she  said,  "to  see  a  man  so 
ridiculously  epris  of  his  own  wife !" 

"Disgusting!"  echoed  the  Professor,  who*  was 
now  deprived  of  an  audience  for  the  story  of  his 
youth.  But  Octavia  smiled  at  him  so  wickedly,  at 
this,  that  the  poor  old  gentleman  rushed  to  his  silk 
handkerchief  in  a  panic. 

"He  behaves  like  a  young  man  with  his  first  af- 
faire," she  remarked.  "Mysteries,  closed  taxis, 
whisperings,  and  even  verses,  for  all  I  know."  She 
broke  off  and  tapped  angrily  with  her  foot  on  the 
step.  "Well,"  she  said  at  last  with  a  sigh,  "I  sup- 
pose we  have  got  to  put  up  with  it  now.  If  Mary 
had  not  been  an  impertinent  little  chit,  and  you, 
Peter,  a  ridiculous  old  fool,  we  should  have  pre- 
vented the  catastrophe." 

"You  still  consider  it  a  catastrophe,  then?"  said 
the  Professor. 

"Oh,  no,  Peter!"  rejoined  Octavia,  with  heavy 
310 


AN   AMATEUR   LOVER 

sarcasm.  "Every  woman  likes  to  have  a  sister-in- 
law  half  her  age,  who  has  triumphed  over  her  1"  By 
which  the  old  gentleman  understood  that  her  own  de- 
feat worried  Lady  Blake  a  great  deal  more  than 
Henry's  misalliance. 

"And  why — why,"  cried  that  lady,  throwing  up 
her  hands  toward  heaven,  in  despair,  "why  did  he 
ever  marry  her?" 

The  Professor  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered.  "Why  does  Henry 
do  anything?" 

Lady  Blake  sighed  and  stepped  into  her  car. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  have  left  my  cards  and  my 
capitulation  in  the  hall;  next  to  victory,  Peter,  the 
best  policy  is  a  charming  surrender.  I  refuse  to  dis- 
turb myself." 

"Aequam  memento  rebus  in  arduis 
Servare  mentem," 

murmured  the  Professor. 

"Tell  him  Curzon  Street,"  answered  Octavia,  who 
always  fled  before  anything  but  French.  She  leaned 
back  in  the  car,  and  was  borne  away  without  a  single 
misgiving  as  to  her  fitness  for  this  world  or  the  next. 
And  if  suavity  is  a  virtue  in  heaven,  there  Lady 
Blake  will  surely  be  found  in  the  seats  which  will 
undoubtedly  be  reserved  for  Mayfair. 

Other  ideas,  other  ways  than  her  own  had  crossed 
her  path,  engaged  her,  and  beaten  her.  Since  she 
had  no  idea  that  she  might  be  wrong,  it  must  needs 
be  the  world  that  was  going  to  the  Devil;  and  thus 
having  entirely  missed  the  point  of  the  whole  busi- 

3" 


SIMPLE    SOULS 

ness,  she  shifted  the  blame  on  to  the  broad  shoulders 
of  Time,  and,  as  she  stood  in  front  of  the  big  pier- 
glass  in  her  bedroom,  remarked  to  herself,  "I  am 
getting  old." 

Yet  on  the  first  day  on  which  you  put  your  hair 
up,  Octavia,  were  you  not  already  My  Lady  with 
nothing  to  learn?  I  despise  you?  Certainly  not. 
You  can  be  very  amusing  at  times,  and  I  shall  often 
be  seen  in  Curzon  Street  on  your  first  and  third 
Tuesdays.  But  I  hope  that  when  you  are  an  old 
woman  and  frightened  at  the  dark,  you  will  find 
someone  to  sit  by  you  and  hold  your  hand. 

The  lights  are  out  in  Wynninghame  House,  and 
the  Duchess  is  asleep  and  dreaming.  Obviously  I 
cannot  go  in  to  her,  so  I  blow  her  a  kiss  from  the 
other  side  of  the  door  and  take  my  leave.  The  cir- 
cumference of  the  universe  is  no  bigger  than  her 
wedding  ring.  For  her  the  earth  and  the  stars  and 
the  moon  and  the  sun  are  contained  behind  Henry's 
black  waistcoat.  As  for  their  love,  there  has  never 
been  anything  like  it :  it  is  a  portent,  a  miracle !  But 
why  go  on?  The  Duchess  is  asleep  and  dreaming, 
and  of  course  her  married  life  is  going  to  be  just  the 
same  as  everybody  else's. 

Downstairs  in  the  study  a  light  is  still  burning,  and 
the  Professor,  with  his  spectacles  crooked  on  the 
bridge  of  his  nose,  and  a  book  elaborately  propped 
up  bef®re  him,  is  reading  about  the  lives  of  the 
lesser  carnivora.  Sometimes  he  makes  notes  with  a 
silver  pencil,  in  the  margin.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  table  sits  Henry.  He  also  has  a  pencil  in  his 

312 


AN   AMATEUR   LOVER 

hand  and  a  piece  of  paper  before  him.  What  is  the 
animal  he  is  studying?  Look  over  his  shoulder  and 
see.  tie  has  not  got  very  far  with  his  notes;  in  fact, 
the  only  writing  on  his  paper  consists  of  the  words 
"To  Molly,"  inscribed  at  the  top  with  a  neat  line 
underneath.  He  breathes  heavily  and  taps  his  pen- 
cil on  the  table,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  his  friend. 

"Peter,"  he  says  at  last,  "what  rhymes  with 
'Molly'— besides 'jolly'?" 

But  Peter  has  long  since  returned  to  his  wonted 
cynicism,  and  he  looks  up  from  his  book  with  a  snort. 
"Folly,"  he  grunts  savagely. 

At  which  Henry  is  angry  and  goes  to  beda 


313 


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